Study on the Improvement of Teaching Quality Management System for Higher Engineering Institutes

Based on the analysis of its establishment and implementation of controlling scheme of the teaching quality management system (TQMS) for advanced institutes of technologies domestic and overseas, from the inspect of the management principles of TQM and 6σas well as the process method of ISO9000 family standards, in combination with the evolution scheme of teaching quality of undergraduate courses in ordinary universities, applying the running principles of PDCA ,this paper has probed into the objectives of the establishment and improvement of the management system on teaching quality, put forward its basic procedures. We believe that its establishment and maintenance should have four stages, namely, plan, do, check and action, as well as eight steps, which includes decision-making, programming, analysis, design, running, assessing, improvement and perfection, which, lays a solid foundation on concrete teaching quality assurance programs for its improvement. Key words: quality management system, procedure improvement, implementation and maintenance, continual improvement, institutes of technology. Résumé: Basé sur l’analyse de l’établissement et de l’application du plan de contrôle du système de gestion de la qualité d’enseignement pour les instituts de technologie supérieurs tant nationaux qu’ étrangers, à partir de l’examination des principes de gestion de ce système et de 6σainsi que la méthode de traitement des standards familial ISO9000, en combinaison avec l’évolution du système de la qualité d’enseignement des cours universitaires dans les universités ordinaires, en applicant les principes de PDCA, cet essai explore les objectifs de l’établissement et de l’amélioration du système de gestion de la qualité d’enseignement et met en avant ses procédures de base. On croit que son établissement et maintenance devrait comporter quatre étapes, soit plan, application, révision et action, et huit pas qui comprennent prise de décision, programmation, analyse, design, application, évaluation, amélioration et perfection, qui, jette une base solide avec des programmes concrets d’assurance de la qualité d’enseignement pour son amélioration. Mots-Clés: système de gestion de la qualité, procédure d’amélioration, application et maintenance, amélioration continuelle, instituts de technologi

Division Managers’ Private Information and Capital Investment: Exploiting External Social Connections as an Information Source

We examine the relationship between division-level information and capital investment in conglomerates, exploiting the external social connections of division managers (DMs) as an information source. We find that DMs who are socially connected with the CEOs of industry peers undertake more investment than those without such connections. The documented effect is stronger when (i) the DM’s information source is more useful, proxied by connected external firms having superior performance, high growth, large market shares, or experienced CEOs; (ii) the industry environment is more uncertain and less transparent; and (iii) the DM is more influential within the conglomerate. Along with increased investment, connected divisions display greater responsiveness to investment opportunities and subsequently realize higher profitability. Overall, division-level information helps improve capital investment decisions despite exacerbated information asymmetries

Scheduling Performance Evaluation of Logistics Service Supply Chain Based on the Dynamic Index Weight

Scheduling is crucial to the operation of logistics service supply chain (LSSC), so scientific performance evaluation method is required to evaluate the scheduling performance. Different from general project performance evaluation, scheduling activities are usually continuous and multiperiod. Therefore, the weight of scheduling performance evaluation index is not unchanged, but dynamically varied. In this paper, the factors that influence the scheduling performance are analyzed in three levels which are strategic environment, operating process, and scheduling results. Based on these three levels, the scheduling performance evaluation index system of LSSC is established. In all, a new performance evaluation method proposed based on dynamic index weight will have three innovation points. Firstly, a multiphase dynamic interaction method is introduced to improve the quality of quantification. Secondly, due to the large quantity of second-level indexes and the requirements of dynamic weight adjustment, the maximum attribute deviation method is introduced to determine weight of second-level indexes, which can remove the uncertainty of subjective factors. Thirdly, an adjustment coefficient method based on set-valued statistics is introduced to determine the first-level indexes weight. In the end, an application example from a logistics company in China is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

A New Leptoceratopsid (Ornithischia: Ceratopsia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Shandong, China and Its Implications for Neoceratopsian Evolution

BACKGROUND: The ceratopsians represent one of the last dinosaurian radiations. Traditionally the only universally accepted speciose clade within the group was the Ceratopsidae. However, recent discoveries and phylogenetic analyses have led to the recognition of a new speciose clade, the Leptoceratopsidae, which is predominantly known from the Upper Cretaceous of North America. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we report a new leptoceratopsid taxon, Zhuchengceratops inexpectus gen. et sp. nov., based on a partial, articulated skeleton recovered from the Upper Cretaceous Wangshi Group of Zhucheng, Shandong Province, China. Although Zhuchengceratops is significantly different from other known leptoceratopsids, it is recovered as a derived member of the group by our phylogenetic analysis. Furthermore, Zhuchengceratops exhibits several features previously unknown in leptoceratopsids but seen in ceratopsids and their close relatives, suggesting that the distribution of morphological features within ceratopsians is more complex than previously realized. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: The discovery of Zhuchengceratops increases both the taxonomic diversity and the morphological disparity of the Leptoceratopsidae, providing further support for the hypothesis that this clade represents a successful radiation of horned dinosaurs in parallel with the Ceratopsidae in the Late Cretaceous. This documents a surprising case of the coexistence and radiation of two closely-related lineages with contrasting suites of jaw and dental features that probably reflect adaptation to different food resources

Acupuncture in Treatment of Chronic Functional Constipation

Constipation is not only a symptom but is a predominant presenting symptom in many diseases. The prevalence is between 3 and 27% worldwide, and is especially prevalent in the elderly population. The aetiology is multifactorial. Laxative abuse or enema use are usually a norm in patients’ constipation. Patients tend not to seek further medical aid after several unsuccessful therapies and this can seriously affect their quality of life

Application of a Spectral Method to Simulate Quasi-Three-Dimensional Underwater Acoustic Fields

The solution and synthesis of quasi-three-dimensional sound fields have always been core issues in computational ocean acoustics. Traditionally, finite difference algorithms have been employed to solve these problems. In this paper, a novel numerical algorithm based on the spectral method is devised. The quasi-three-dimensional problem is transformed into a problem resembling a two-dimensional line source using an integral transformation strategy. Then, a stair-step approximation is adopted to address the range dependence of the two-dimensional problem; because this approximation is essentially a discretization, the range-dependent two-dimensional problem is further simplified into a one-dimensional problem. Finally, we apply the Chebyshev--Tau spectral method to accurately solve the one-dimensional problem. We present the corresponding numerical program for the proposed algorithm and describe some representative numerical examples. The simulation results ultimately verify the reliability and capability of the proposed algorithm.Comment: 43 pages, 20 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2112.1360

Less is More? An Empirical Study on Configuration Issues in Python PyPI Ecosystem

Python is widely used in the open-source community, largely owing to the extensive support from diverse third-party libraries within the PyPI ecosystem. Nevertheless, the utilization of third-party libraries can potentially lead to conflicts in dependencies, prompting researchers to develop dependency conflict detectors. Moreover, endeavors have been made to automatically infer dependencies. These approaches focus on version-level checks and inference, based on the assumption that configurations of libraries in the PyPI ecosystem are correct. However, our study reveals that this assumption is not universally valid, and relying solely on version-level checks proves inadequate in ensuring compatible run-time environments. In this paper, we conduct an empirical study to comprehensively study the configuration issues in the PyPI ecosystem. Specifically, we propose PyCon, a source-level detector, for detecting potential configuration issues. PyCon employs three distinct checks, targeting the setup, packing, and usage stages of libraries, respectively. To evaluate the effectiveness of the current automatic dependency inference approaches, we build a benchmark called VLibs, comprising library releases that pass all three checks of PyCon. We identify 15 kinds of configuration issues and find that 183,864 library releases suffer from potential configuration issues. Remarkably, 68% of these issues can only be detected via the source-level check. Our experiment results show that the most advanced automatic dependency inference approach, PyEGo, can successfully infer dependencies for only 65% of library releases. The primary failures stem from dependency conflicts and the absence of required libraries in the generated configurations. Based on the empirical results, we derive six findings and draw two implications for open-source developers and future research in automatic dependency inference.Comment: This paper has been accepted by ICSE 202