Factors associated with the compensation decision in foreign invested enterprises (FINs) in China

Employee compensation is very important for an organization's development. The objective of this research is to find out which factors will influence employee compensation, and examine the main compensation components and compensation system in foreign invested enterprises in China. The literature review provides plenty of studies about this area which have done by some researchers. The respondents were based on a sample population. The questionnaires were constructed out of extensive literature review. And the hypotheses were tested by using SPSS program of reliability analysis, descriptive analysis and multiple regression. This research discovered that employee performance, job position, education and working experience have a positive significant impact on employee compensation, gender has a significant impact, and employee loyalty still have an impact on employee compensation but not significant

Implementation strategies of a contract-based MRI examination reservation process for stroke patients

International audienceTimely imaging examinations are critical for stroke patients due to the potential life threat. We have proposed a contract-based Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reservation process [1] in order to reduce their waiting time for MRI examinations. Contracted time slots (CTS) are especially reserved for Neural Vascular Department (NVD) treating stroke patients. Patients either wait in a CTS queue for such time slots or are directed to Regular Time Slot (RTS) reservation. This strategy creates "unlucky" patients having to wait for lengthy RTS reservation. This paper proposes and analyzes other contract implementation strategies called RTS reservation strategies. These strategies reserve RTS for NVD but do not direct patients to regular reservations. Patients all wait in the same queue and are served by either CTS or RTS on a FIFO (First In First Out) basis. We prove that RTS reservation strategies are able to reduce the unused time slots and patient waiting time. Extensive numerical results are presented to show the benefits of RTS reservation and to compare various RTS reservation strategies

Dynamic Surgery Assignment of Multiple Operating Rooms With Planned Surgeon Arrival Times

International audienceThis paper addresses the dynamic assignment of a given set of surgeries to multiple identical operating rooms (ORs). Surgeries have random durations and planned surgeon arrival times. Surgeries are assigned dynamically to ORs at surgery completion events. The goal is to minimize the total expected cost incurred by surgeon waiting, OR idling, and OR overtime. We first formulate the problem as a multi-stage stochastic programming model. An efficient algorithm is then proposed by combining a two-stage stochastic programming approximation and some look-ahead strategies. A perfect information-based lower bound of the optimal expected cost is given to evaluate the optimality gap of the dynamic assignment strategy. Numerical results show that the dynamic scheduling and optimization with the proposed approach significantly improve the performance of static scheduling and First Come First Serve (FCFS) strategy

U-model based predictive control for nonlinear processes with input delay

In this paper, a general control scheme is proposed for nonlinear dynamic processes with input delay described by different models, including polynomial models, state-space models, nonlinear autoregressive moving average with eXogenous inputs (NARMAX) models, Hammerstein or Wiener type models. To tackle the input delay and nonlinear dynamics involved with the control system design, it integrates the classical Smith predictor and a U-model based controller into a U-model based predictive control scheme, which gives a general solution of two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) control for the set-point tracking and disturbance rejection, respectively. Both controllers are analytically designed by proposing thedesired transfer functions for the above objectives in terms of a linear system expression with the U-model, and therefore are independent of the process model for implementation. Meanwhile, the control system robust stability is analyzed in the presence of process uncertainties. To demonstrate the control performance and advantage, three examples from the literature are conducted with a user-friendly step by step procedure for the ease of understanding by readers

Dual Crosslinked Poly(acrylamide-co-N-vinylpyrrolidone) Microspheres With Re-crosslinking Ability For Fossil Energy Recovery

Microspheres have been proposed to be applied in controlling wastewater production for mature oilfields and migrating leakage for gas and nuclear waste storage. However, it remains challenging for stacked microspheres to maintain strong blocking ability in micron-sized small pores or fractures. In this study, a novel microsphere was developed with comprehensive properties including high deformability and long re-crosslinking time upon tunable swelling ratio for the applications. A dual covalent and physical crosslinking strategy was used to develop novel microspheres reinforced by a hydrogen bond (H-bond, between pyrrole ring and amide group) and coordination bond (between chromium acetate (CrAc) and carboxyl group via hydrolysis process). The microspheres were fabricated via radical suspension copolymerization of acrylamide (AM) and N-vinylpyrrolidone (NVP) in the presence of N, Nʹ-methylene-diacrylamide (MBA) with subsequent introduction of CrAc. MBA induced the strong crosslinking through a chemical covalent bond and H-bond triggered the weak crosslinking which was anticipated to prohibit the hydrolysis of the amide group. The H-bond delayed the formation of CrAc coordination bond by delaying the formation of carboxyl groups, resulting in achieving the re-crosslinking of the microspheres. As a result, the microspheres exhibit the tunable initial size (8–165 μm) and swelling ratio (30–630 μm), with controllable network parameters. The microspheres showed high migration ability (can transport through pores with 1/16 size of microsphere itself), and long re-crosslinking time (up to 16.5 days). The re-crosslinked gel demonstrated dual network structure with districted mesh size ζ distribution

How good are distributed allocation algorithms for solving urban search and rescue problems? A comparative study with centralized algorithms

In this paper, a modified centralized algorithm based on particle swarm optimization (MCPSO) is presented to solve the task allocation problem in the search and rescue domain. The reason for this paper is to provide a benchmark against distributed algorithms in search and rescue application area. The hypothesis of this paper is that a centralized algorithm should perform better than distributed algorithms because it has all the available information at hand to solve the problem. Therefore, the centralized approach will provide a benchmark for evaluating how well the distributed algorithms are working and how much improvement can still be gained. Among the distributed algorithms, the consensus-based bundle algorithm (CBBA) is a relatively recent method based on the market auction mechanism, which is receiving considerable attention. Other distributed algorithms, such as PI and PI with softmax, have shown to perform better than CBBA. Therefore, in this paper, the three distributed algorithms mentioned earlier are compared against three centralized algorithms. They are particle swarm optimization, MCPSO, described in this paper, and genetic algorithms. Two experiments were conducted. The first involved comparing all the above-mentioned algorithms, both centralized and distributed, using the same set of application scenarios. It is found that MCPSO always outperforms the other five algorithms in time cost. Due to the high failure rate of CBBA and the other two centralized methods, the second experiment focused on carrying out more tests to compare MCPSO against PI and PI with softmax. All the results are shown and analyzed to determine the performance gaps between the distributed algorithms and the MCPSO

Capturing a Metastable Silver(I) Compound of Pyrazine-2,3-dicarboxylic Acid

A metastable 3D supramolecular compound [Ag(NH3)(2)]-[Ag-3(pzdca)(2)(NH3)(4)] (H(2)pzdca = pyrazine-2,3-dicarboxylic acid) (1) has been synthesized and characterized crystallographically. This study offers important information to in-depth understanding of the self-assembly process involving Ag-1 under ammoniacal conditions and conforms that [Ag(NH3)(2)](+)-containing compounds are the intermediates during synthesis of some Ag-1 coordination polymers.National Natural Science Foundation of China [20721001]; MSTC [2007CB815301]; National Science Fund of China for Fostering Talents in Basic Science [J0630429