Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling (2nd ed.)

Strategy and Structure

ธรรมาภบาลของภาครฐเปนหนงในปจจยสำคญทสงอทธพลตอการพฒนาเศรษฐกจและสงคมของประเทศ บทความเรองนไดทำการพจารณาธรรมาภบาลของภาครฐใน 213 ประเทศทวโลก ซงแบงออกเปน 6 มต ไดแก การควบคมการคอรปชนความมประสทธผลของภาครฐ การปราศจากความรนแรงและการกอการรายคณภาพในการควบคม การบงคบใชกฎหมาย และเสรภาพของประชาชนในการแสดงความคดเหน ซงทำการศกษาโดยธนาคารโลกภายใตโครงการ Worldwide Governance Indicators จากการพจารณาพบวาประเทศทพฒนาแลวมธรรมาภบาลของ ภาครฐสงกวาประเทศกำลงพฒนาเปนอยางมาก สะทอนใหเหนวา ธรรมาภบาลของภาครฐคอหนงในปจจยทชวยขบเคลอนการพฒนาเศรษฐกจและสงคมของประเทศนอกจากนยงพบวาประเทศไทยยงไมสามารถพงพอใจกบระดบของธรรมาภบาลของประเทศในปจจบนได เนองจากยงอยในระดบคอนขางตา Government Governance: An Implication from Worldwide Governance Indicators Government governance is one of the major determinants of the economic and social development of the nations. This article reviewed government governance of 213 countries worldwide which was categorized into six dimensions, including control of corruption, government effectiveness, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, regulatory quality, rule of law and voice and accountability, based on the study of the World Bank under Worldwide Governance Indicators project. After the revision, it was found that developed countries had far higher government governance than developing countries, implying that government governance is one of the factors which drive the economic and social development of the nations. Moreover, Thailand could not yet be satisfied with its current government governance since its rank was quite low.

ธรรมาภิบาลของภาครัฐ: นัยจาก Worldwide Governance Indicators

Various textbooks have been written on the epidemiology of plant diseases. Most of them present theory of epidemiology, thus giving a description of epidemiological principles. Some of these are of a general nature, whereas others concentrate on specialized subjects, but there are no books on experimental techniques in epidemiology. This omission has been recognized and rectified by Kranz and Rotem. As mentioned in their preface they intended, by editing and publishing the book, 'to help in the development of a methodology able to provide a choice of adequate methods widely acceptable amongst epidemiologists for varying applications and objectives'. For this purpose, they invited 27 distinguished plant pathologists, a number of them from Kranz's 'stable', to participate, and to provide information from their own rich experience. There are 20 chapters spread over four sections. Section I (General techniques), deals with techniques and approaches used in experiments in the field and under controlled conditions. Advantages and disadvantages of such experiments and the relations between them are explained. In Section II (.Measurements and their analysis) disease assessment, crop development and estimation of spore production, dispersal, survival and infectiousness are treated. The analysis of spatial patterns of soil-borne pathogens {s discussed in a separate chapter, for soil-borne diseases have to be approached differently. This section is concluded with two chapters on the monitoring and analysis of environmental factors. Section III (Special topics) is a collection of items, such as the analysis of the effects of control measures, fungicide resistance, virulence in pathogen populations, components in yield loss, development of forecasters, aphid-borne epidemiology, quantitative nematology, geophytopathology and long-distance dispersal. As the editors explain, these are 'not necessarily connected with each other, but all dealing with definite objectives in epidemiological experimentation'. The reasoning for the addition of these topics to the contents is clear. Most are worth treatment, and each has specialized techniques and approaches. The reasoning for collecting them all together under 'Special topics' is a little unsatisfactory. A rather simple rearrangement and naming of the subjects could separate them into a couple of better defined chapters, which would have made the contents more accessible to the eager user. Section IV (The synopsis of experimental restilts) gives the reader a look into the methods in comparative epidemiology, and into the development and use of simulation models for root and foliar diseases. The limitations, necessarily imposed upon the authors, to prevent the publication of an unwieldy and ever more expensive handbook lead to the question whether the editors 'bit more than they could chew'. Especially the chapters on modeling and simulation suffer under these limitations. Most authors have achieved a fine work, though readers, familiar with the authors' publications, can 'taste' a bit of subject.ivity in the choice and approach of techniques and methods by some of them. The book might be a useful addition to the library of all those involved in experimental work in epidemiology, but particularly those called 'novices in epidemiology' in the preface. The editors may have had undergraduates and young postgraduates in mind, but this work might be useful for other epidemiologists too. It is a pity that the high price will hinder young scientists from purchasing the book, particularly those in developing countries.

Book review: Experimental techniques in plant disease epidemiology, J. Kranz & J. Rotem (eds.). Springer-Verlag Berlin, 1989, 299 pp.

A state-of-art literature review reflecting 15 years of focus on sustainable supply chain management

Sustainable supply chain management has received much attention form researchers and practitioners over the past decade owing to the increasing awareness regarding environmental and social issues. Accordingly, organisations come under pressure from a number of both internal and external sources including employees, customers, competitors, socially aware organisations, communities, governments, and non-governmental organisations to act in a more socially responsible way. As a result, more authors are beginning to address supplier selection problems in light of sustainability criteria. However, the interrelationships among sustainability supplier selection criteria have rarely been discussed in the research literature. This study is aimed primarily at finding and analysing such interactions. We made use of interpretive structural modelling to extract the interrelationships among sustainability criteria and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory to determine the intensity of these relationships. A case study in the gas industry is presented to demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed approach.

Analysis of interactions among sustainability supplier selection criteria using ISM and fuzzy DEMATEL

Purpose




Nowadays, quality is one of the most important key success factors in the automobile industry. Improving the quality is based on optimizing the most important quality characteristics and usually launched by highly applied techniques such as failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA). According to the literature, however, traditional FMEA suffers from some limitations. Reviewing the literature, on one hand, shows that the fuzzy rule-base system, under the artificial intelligence category, is the most frequently applied method for solving the FMEA problems. On the other hand, the automobile industry, which highly takes advantages of traditional FMEA, has been deprived of benefits of fuzzy rule-based FMEA (fuzzy FMEA). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to apply fuzzy FMEA for quality improvement in the automobile industry.




Design/methodology/approach




Firstly, traditional FMEA has been implemented. Then by consulting with a six-member quality assurance team, fuzzy membership functions have been obtained for risk factors, i.e., occurrence (O), severity (S), and detection (D). The experts have also been consulted about constructing the fuzzy rule base. These evaluations have been performed to prioritize the most critical failure modes occurring during production of doors of a compact car, manufactured by a part-producing company in Iran.




Findings




Findings indicate that fuzzy FMEA not only solves problems of traditional FMEA, but also is highly in accordance with it, in terms of some priorities. According to results of fuzzy FMEA, failure modes E, pertaining to the sash of the rear right door, and H, related to the sash of the front the left door, have been ranked as the most and the least critical situations, respectively. The prioritized failures could be considered to facilitate future quality optimization.




Practical implications




This research provides quality engineers of the studied company with the chance of ranking their failure modes based on a fuzzy expert system.




Originality/value




This study utilizes the fuzzy logic approach to solve some major limitations of FMEA, an extensively applied method in the automobile industry.

Fuzzy inference system application for failure analyzing in automobile industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a quantitative methodology for benchmarking process which is simple, effective and efficient as a rejoinder to benchmarking detractors who debate benchmarking is just a catch‐up process.Design/methodology/approach – The methodology developed for benchmarking here consists of three phases; define, analyze and results. Define phase concentrates on what to benchmark, whereas analyze and results concentrate on how to benchmark. Analyze phase is developed based on two popular mathematical programming techniques which are called technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and goal programming.Findings – The developed benchmarking methodology is deployed in the case of business schools and results show its efficiency and effectiveness as well as its applicability to various business environments in implementation.Research limitations/implications – The main limitation here is necessity of collecting data about all the peers involved in...

An optimisational model of benchmarking

Abstract In recent years, multi-criteria sorting problems have become an interesting topic for researchers working on multi-criteria decision-making. ELimination and Choice Expressing REality (ELECTRE)-TRI and FlowSort are well-known approaches suggested for such a classification. The current study aimed to implement ELECTRE-TRI and FlowSort methods in the stock portfolio selection (SPS) as one of the most popular and important decision-making subjects and compare the outcomes of each method to understand how these methods perform in SPS problems. In this study, the best–worst method was applied to determine the weights of criteria. Four approaches for ELECTRE-TRI and 15 approaches for FlowSort were considered. Finally, 19 different approaches were considered to select stocks from a large pool of stocks. Results indicated that the model parameter should be properly defined to minimize inconsistencies and improve the power of the model. 

/pdf/using-electre-tri-and-flowsort-methods-in-a-stock-portfolio-1cefm1lk.pdf

Mohammad Reza Mehregan

Papers

Analysis of interactions among sustainability supplier selection criteria using ISM and fuzzy DEMATEL

Fuzzy inference system application for failure analyzing in automobile industry

An optimisational model of benchmarking

Using ELECTRE-TRI and FlowSort methods in a stock portfolio selection context

Effect of Different Concentrations of Chitosan Biostimulant on Biochemical and Morphophysiological Traits of Stevia Plant (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni)