Relative Performance Levels Research Articles

A survey on existing vendor selection techniques

The vendor selection is an important issue owing to increasing competitiveness of business organisations. The researchers have already come up with some techniques to help business organisations in that regard. This paper accumulates existing vendor selection techniques and searches for the comparative strengths and weaknesses of them. It is observed that some methods require more user time and effort than others producing results with varied types of accuracy. The target of this paper is to analyse the benefits and shortcomings of the existing methods and draw conclusion on their relative performance and efficiency level.

Solid Particle Erosion Testing of Helicopter Rotor Blade Materials

The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) was asked to participate in an OSD-funded erosion effort by the Coating Technology Integration Office at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Solid particle (sand) erosion testing was conducted by the University of Dayton Research Institute to determine the erosion resistance of materials currently used on the leading edges of Army aviation rotor blades of aircraft in Southwest Asia (SWA). This testing and evaluation was important for two reasons; first, Iraq and Afghanistan are the primary locations of our current anti-terror operations, and second, the sands within these two countries are the worst in the world from an erosion standpoint (dry conditions + freshest grains of sand + predominantly angular quartz grains + blowing winds). The sand utilized herein is considered even more erosive than the sand from these two countries, since they contain a higher concentration of quartz than the SWA sand. In 2005, observations of actual SWA field failures of helicopter rotor blade protective tapes and coatings were compared to existing state-of-the-art, laboratory-based sand erosion data during a U.S. Army sponsored program. Laboratory-produced data did not match the severity of field-use damage, even under extremely high levels of particle loading. The need to test to erosive failure representative of this environment was determined to be paramount in establishing relative performance levels of erosion resistant protective systems being screened for potential field use. The goal of this effort was to provide two synthetic sand formulas capable of testing various polymer-based candidate rotor blade protective systems to failure. The test media was derived from characterization of sand and dust materials unique to SWA. The synthetic sand mixtures developed by this effort will be incorporated in a new test protocol for sand erosion to represent a truly “worst case” test, with extended application to other aerospace components susceptible to sand erosion damage applicable to Department of Defense activities in most dry—hot desert regions. Comprehensive post-test analysis performed by ARL included: visual examination, mass loss calculations, erosion rate determination, surface roughness testing, volume loss calculations, scanning electron microscopy characterization, and metallography. As a result of post-test analysis, many trends were observed, with the results documented herein. The results of this testing have been used as a baseline for future testing of alternative materials and coating systems, and to prepare a solid particle erosion test standard (MIL-STD-3033).

Benchmark to escape from Lake Wobegon

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate whether an employee reports an accurate view of the relative performance level of the organisation for which they work.Design/methodology/approachUtilizes a survey of 2,517 senior managers, managers and team leaders from 120 different organisations in nine different countries.FindingsThere is significant and consistent overestimation of performance with 75 percent of the management team reporting that their organisation is above average, and only 5 percent rating their organisation as below average compared to its competitors. A very significant finding is that where there is likely to be a greater degree of knowledge of competitor's performance estimation improves.Practical implicationsThe implication of this misrepresentation of the true position is to make it less likely that an improvement initiative will succeed as managers will not be sufficiently motivated to improve an apparently satisfactory status quo. The paper calls for greater focus both on the activity of benchmarking and in the process of spreading knowledge of the benchmarking activity.Originality/valueThis paper extends issues such as the Lake Wobegon effect and socially desirable reporting which have been investigated in depth in the area of personal self‐assessment and applies them into a different arena, that of the employee's view of the performance of the organisation.

Equal Learning Does Not Result in Equal Remembering: The Importance of Post-Encoding Processes.

Explanations of variability in long-term recall typically appeal to encoding and/or retrieval processes. However, for well over a century, it has been apparent that for memory traces to be stored successfully, they must undergo a post-encoding process of stabilization and integration. Variability in post-encoding processes is thus a potential source of age-related and individual variance in long-term recall. We examined post-encoding variability in each of two experiments. In each experiment, 20-month-old infants were exposed to novel three-step sequences in each of three encoding conditions: watch only, imitate, and learn to criterion. They were tested for recall after 15 min (as a measure of the success of encoding) and either weeks (1, 2, or 3: Experiment 1) or days (1, 2, or 4: Experiment 2) later. In each experiment, differential relative levels of performance among the conditions were observed at the two tests. The results implicate post-encoding processes are a source of variance in long-term recall.

Corporate Location, Concentration and Performance: Large Company Headquarters in the Australian Urban System

The paper examines the geography of corporate headquarters in the Australian urban system, giving consideration to their location, control of capital and performance. The paper argues that, while considerable recent attention has been given to global cities in the networks of corporate power, the spatial organisation of company headquarters remains important within national urban systems. In the case of Australia, Sydney and Melbourne dominate the corporate landscape, although the smaller cities of Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth occupy important niches. The paper demonstrates that there are clear variations in the relative performance of companies across the Australian urban system. There is also a pattern of sectoral specialisation within Australia’s cities which, in part, helps to explain the different development trajectories and relative levels of corporate performance. The paper concludes by exploring some of the implications of the study for the understanding of urban systems.

Large-scale Internet benchmarking: Technology and application in warehousing operations

Effective benchmarking requires standards for measuring performance across a broad range of organizations. Industry-benchmarking measures the relative performance levels of similar operations, but gathering sufficient data to robustly characterize best performance is the primary hurdle to more widespread implementation. This paper describes the development of an innovative, large-scale benchmarking methodology which employs Internet technology to overcome the data collection problem. We discuss a particular instance of this approach, iDEAs-W—the result of an ongoing collaboration between academia and the warehousing industry. This paper's purpose is to demonstrate the methodology for the warehousing industry and share our insights to allow others to refine the tool for applications in other industries.

Large-Scale Internet Benchmarking: Technology and Application in Warehousing Operations

Effective benchmarking requires standards for measuring performance across a broad range of organizations. Industry benchmarking measures the relative performance levels of similar operations, but the difficulty of gathering sufficient data to robustly characterize best performance is the primary hurdle to more widespread implementation. This paper describes the development of an innovative, large-scale benchmarking methodology which employs Internet technology to overcome the data collection problem. We discuss a particular instance of this approach, iDEAs-W - the result of an ongoing collaboration between academia and the warehousing industry. This paper’s purpose is to demonstrate the methodology for the warehousing industry and share our insights to allow others to refine the tool for applications in other industries.

Reflections on Phonological Working Memory, Letter Knowledge, and Phonological Awareness: A Reply to Hartmann (2008)

Purpose S. Rvachew and M. Grawburg (2006) found that speech perception and vocabulary skills jointly predicted the phonological awareness skills of children with a speech sound disorder. E. Hartmann (2008) suggested that the Rvachew and Grawburg model would be improved by the addition of phonological working memory. Hartmann further suggested that the link between phoneme awareness and letter knowledge should be modeled as a reciprocal relationship. In this letter, Rvachew and Grawburg respond to Hartmann’s suggestions for modification of the model. Method The literature on the role of phonological working memory in the development of vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness was reviewed. Data presented previously by Rvachew and Grawburg (2006) and Rvachew (2006) were reanalyzed. Results The reanalysis of previously reported longitudinal data revealed that the relationship between letter knowledge and specific aspects of phonological awareness was not reciprocal for kindergarten-age children with a speech sound disorder. Conclusions Phonological working memory, if measured so that relative performance levels do not reflect differences in articulatory accuracy, may not alter the model because of its close correspondence with speech perception skills. However, further study of the hypothesized causal relationships modeled by Rvachew and Grawburg (2006) would be valuable, especially if experimental research designs were used.

Anthropometric and Physical Characteristics of Motor Disabilited Paralympic Rowers

The purpose of this study was to characterize aerobic, anaerobic, handgrip strength, and body fat content (BF) characteristics in paralympic rowers (ROW) in order to determine motor disabled rowers' fitness level and if specific motor disabilities could impair performance in this specific population. Upper body anaerobic threshold (LacT), peak (PK-AnP), mean (M-AnP), and lower (L-AnP) anaerobic power, peak anaerobic power to weight ratio (RelPk-AnP) and fatigue index (FI) were measured by the Wingate test (WinT). Handgrip strength was also measured and skinfold sum was used to estimate BF and were compared with a reference group of recreational disabled athletes (CON). LacT was significantly higher (p < 0.01) in ROW compared with CON. RelPk-AnP and BF were significantly different (p < 0.05) in ROW compared with CON as well. All other measured parameters did not significantly differ between ROW and CON. In most of cases, rowers have shown a relative low performance level, induced probably by specific disabilities.

Start of Uniform Energy‐Saving Label: Points of Energy‐Saving Measures for Home Electric Appliances, etc.

AbstractJapanese energy conservation measures for home electric appliances and the like are the following: the Retailer Indication System (Uniform Energy‐saving label), Energy‐Saving Labeling Program and Excellent Shop Program, as well as a broadly publicized program to present the information in a list of energy conservation performance on all products of all manufacturers. As the basis of these systems and programs, the concept of the top‐runner criteria has been introduced. The idea is such that on electrical appliances that are considered to be the most energy consuming, the energy conservation target is set out at a point which is higher than any energy conservation efficiency level among commercialized product types or models in each appliance category, and the level of each product has to be seen on the product itself. As an easy‐to‐see display of the energy conservation performance and others, an Energy‐Saving Labeling Program has been introduced in which the energy conservation performance and criteria‐achieving rate as well as its mark are to be presented on the product itself. In addition, a Uniform Energy‐Saving Label to show the relative level of energy conservation performance with a number of stars has been introduced, which includes indicative annual electricity charges, etc. There is an additional program in which home appliance shops that explain and provide correct information regarding these programs and energy conservation and actively promote the sale of the energy‐saving products are evaluated as excellent shops. The current situation and possibility of reduction of standby power consumed by products are also discussed. Copyright © 2007 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley &amp; Sons, Inc.

4B-6 No association between size at birth and levels of physical activity measured by accelerometers in Indian children

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that continuation of a regular running and/or aerobics program during late pregnancy at or above 50% of preconceptional levels limits fetal growth. Accordingly, detailed neonatal morphometric data were gathered in the offspring of two groups: 77 well-conditioned recreational runners and aerobic dancers who were delivered at term after continuing their exercise regimen at or above 50% of the preconceptional level throughout pregnancy and 55 matched controls. Daily exercise performance was quantitated before conception and throughout pregnancy. Significant reductions in birth weight (-310 gm), birth weight percentile (-20), ponderal index (-0.24), its percentile (-30), and the fetoplacental weight ratio (-0.7) were seen in the offspring of the exercise group whereas crown-heel length (51.4 cm) and head circumference (35.0) were similar in the two groups. Reductions in two-site skin-fold thickness (-1.5 mm), skin-fold percentile (-30), calculated percent body fat (-5.0%), and fat mass (-220 gm) in the offspring of the exercise group confirmed the asymmetric pattern of growth restriction and indicated that approximately 70% of the difference in birth weight could be explained by the difference in neonatal fat mass. In runners, the relative level of exercise performance in the last 5 months of pregnancy explained 40% of the variability in birth weight over an 1100 gm birth weight range. We conclude that continuation of a regular aerobic or running program at or above a minimal training level during late pregnancy results in an asymmetric pattern of growth restriction that primarily impacts on neonatal fat mass.

Age-related attenuation of dominant hand superiority.

BackgroundThe decline of motor performance of the human hand-arm system with age is well-documented. While dominant hand performance is superior to that of the non-dominant hand in young individuals, little is known of possible age-related changes in hand dominance. We investigated age-related alterations of hand dominance in 20 to 90 year old subjects. All subjects were unambiguously right-handed according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. In Experiment 1, motor performance for aiming, postural tremor, precision of arm-hand movement, speed of arm-hand movement, and wrist-finger speed tasks were tested. In Experiment 2, accelerometer-sensors were used to obtain objective records of hand use in everyday activities.Principal FindingsOur data confirm previous findings of a general task-dependent decline in motor performance with age. Analysis of the relationship between right/left-hand performances using a laterality index showed a loss of right hand dominance with advancing age. The clear right-hand advantage present at younger ages changed to a more balanced performance in advanced age. This shift was due to a more pronounced age-related decline of right hand performance. Accelerometer-sensor measurements supported these findings by demonstrating that the frequency of hand use also shifted from a clear right hand preference in young adults to a more balanced usage of both hands in old age. Despite these age-related changes in the relative level of performance in defined motor tasks and in the frequency of hand use, elderly subjects continued to rate themselves as unambiguous right-handers.ConclusionThe discrepancy between hand-specific practical performance in controlled motor tests as well as under everyday conditions and the results of questionnaires concerning hand use and hand dominance suggests that most elderly subjects are unaware of the changes in hand dominance that occur over their lifespan, i.e., a shift to ambidexterity.

Aviation benchmarking: issues and industry insights from benchmarking results

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the processes used to ensure that the comparisons made between airport and airline performance are as meaningful as possible, and to highlight a number of issues which need to be considered when making performance comparisons in aviation. Design/methodology/approach – Evidence was gathered from an international data sample of airports and airlines. Operational and financial data was derived from published reports. Findings – The research illustrates the scale of differences in airport performance levels, and it also highlights the considerable difference in performance levels between airports and airlines. It is clear that many factors can impact on an airport's ability to optimise its performance, and on its relative level of performance when compared to its peers. Practical implications – The research highlights and demonstrates the need for a degree of understanding of contextual factors when comparing airport performance measures with each other and when comparing airline performance. Originality/value – Insight into the process by which airport and airline performance measurements can be compared with each other.

Participant recruitment methods and statistical reasoning performance

Optimal Bayesian reasoning performance has reportedly been elusive, and a variety of explanations have been suggested for this situation. In a series of experiments, it is demonstrated that these difficulties with replication can be accounted for by differences in participant-sampling methodologies. Specifically, the best performances are obtained with students from top-tier, national universities who were paid for their participation. Performance drops significantly as these conditions are altered regarding inducements (e.g., using unpaid participants) or participant source (e.g., using participants from a second-tier, regional university). Honours-programme undergraduates do better than regular undergraduates within the same university, paid participation creates superior performance, and top-tier university students do better than students from lower ranked universities. Pictorial representations (supplementing problem text) usually have a slight facilitative effect across these participant manipulations. These results indicate that studies should take account of these methodological details and focus more on relative levels of performance rather than absolute performance.

Assessment of the performance of pesticide-testing laboratories world-wide through proficiency testing

Proficiency testing (PT) is critical in the pesticides field, as this area places more demands than most on the analyst, in terms of needing to monitor a wide range of pesticides in a great range of differing matrices. We have looked for trends in performance using results from three different PT schemes (two commercial, and one organized by the European Commission – the European Proficiency Test). ‘Difficult’ and ‘easy’ individual pesticides in ‘difficult’ and ‘easy’ matrices are identified, and relative levels of performance are reported. We have assessed an overview of analytical methods used by PT participants, where possible looking for correlations between performance and choice of method (in particular choice of instrumental technique).

More Males Run Relatively Fast in U.S. Road Races: Further Evidence of a Sex Difference in Competitiveness

Deaner (2006) recently showed that among elite U.S. runners, two to four times as many males as females run fast relative to sex-specific world-class standards. Previous questionnaire studies of non-elite runners suggest this phenomenon may reflect a sex difference in motivation to train competitively. If this hypothesis is correct, then the sex difference in performance depth should also hold in non-elite running populations. Here I tested this prediction by analyzing the finishing times at 20 of the largest 5000 m road races and 20 of the largest marathons held in the U.S. in 2003. For both types of races, overall population distributions of relative performance were similar in males and females. However, at the fastest relative performance levels, males were over represented by two to four times. This difference could not be explained by the presence of professional runners or as an artifact of biased world-class standards. This result shows that the sex difference in performance depth occurs generally and thus supports the hypothesis that sex differences in competitiveness partly reflect evolved predispositions.

Can Spectro-Temporal Complexity Explain the Autistic Pattern of Performance on Auditory Tasks?

To test the hypothesis that level of neural complexity explain the relative level of performance and brain activity in autistic individuals, available behavioural, ERP and imaging findings related to the perception of increasingly complex auditory material under various processing tasks in autism were reviewed. Tasks involving simple material (pure tones) and/or low-level operations (detection, labelling, chord disembedding, detection of pitch changes) show a superior level of performance and shorter ERP latencies. In contrast, tasks involving spectrally- and temporally-dynamic material and/or complex operations (evaluation, attention) are poorly performed by autistics, or generate inferior ERP activity or brain activation. Neural complexity required to perform auditory tasks may therefore explain pattern of performance and activation of autistic individuals during auditory tasks.

Audio and Visual Cues in a Two-Talker Divided Attention Speech-Monitoring Task

Although audiovisual (AV) cues are known to improve speech intelligibility in difficult listening environments, little is known about their role in divided attention tasks that require listeners to monitor multiple talkers at the same time. In this experiment, a call-sign-based multitalker listening test was used to evaluate performance in two-talker AV configurations that combined zero, one, or two channels of visual information (neither, one, or both talkers visible) with zero, one, or two channels of audio information (no audio, both talkers played from the same loudspeaker, and both talkers played through different, spatially separated loudspeakers). The results were analyzed to determine the relative performance levels that would occur with each AV configuration with target information that was equally likely to originate from either of the two talkers in the stimulus. The results indicate that spatial separation of the audio signals has the greatest impact on performance in multichannel AV speech displays and that caution should be used when presenting a visual representation of only a single talker unless that talker is known to be the highest priority talker in the combined AV stimulus. Potential applications of this research include the design of improved audiovisual speech displays for multichannel communications systems.

Aviation benchmarking

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the processes used to ensure that the comparisons made between airport and airline performance are as meaningful as possible, and to highlight a number of issues which need to be considered when making performance comparisons in aviation. Design/methodology/approach – Evidence was gathered from an international data sample of airports and airlines. Operational and financial data was derived from published reports. Findings – The research illustrates the scale of differences in airport performance levels, and it also highlights the considerable difference in performance levels between airports and airlines. It is clear that many factors can impact on an airport's ability to optimise its performance, and on its relative level of performance when compared to its peers. Practical implications – The research highlights and demonstrates the need for a degree of understanding of contextual factors when comparing airport performance measures with each other and when comparing airline performance. Originality/value – Insight into the process by which airport and airline performance measurements can be compared with each other.

Impact of work teams: a comparison study of assembly cells and assembly line for a variety of operating environments

This research compares assembly lines with different cellular, team working environments. Organization of an assembly system using cells requires worker flexibility where each worker is allowed to help his or her co-workers in the same cell and often to undertake a number of different tasks within the cell. We compare two different cellular systems with an unpaced, serial assembly line. The manufacturing systems are initially compared through an exploratory Markovian approach. Subsequently, the relative performance levels of the systems are examined across a variety of operating environments using simulation models. Operating environments vary based on shop size, setup times and processing time variances. The results indicate the general superiority of the cellular systems over the assembly line. However, some interesting observations are drawn for cases where the assembly line outperforms the cells. One of the cases is where workers realize substantial benefits in terms of performing their tasks in less time due to specialization on the tasks. The other scenario is where working in teams make the overall completion of the tasks more inefficient compared to working individually. Specific cross-over points are analyzed where the assembly lines start performing better than the assembly cells under these scenarios. The conclusions highlight guidelines for practicing managers on the most appropriate system under a given set of operating conditions.