林依轮:带着快乐,向快乐出发

歌手林依轮在谈到不久前发生的几起空难时说:空难对那些平时不珍惜生活的人来说,触动会更大,他们会重新审视人生,重新考虑怎么面对今后的生活。他还说:生活中潜伏着很多危险。有时候这种危险和你擦肩而过,有时候危险可能会和你迎面相撞。事情发生以后,有些人怨天尤人,更多的人会觉得无奈。这位歌手主张,在不伤害自己、不伤害别人、也不被别人伤害的前提之下享受生活。由此可以诠释“快乐是一种感觉,向快乐出发是一种态度。”     

Workforce engagement: What it is,what drives it,and why it matters for organizational performance

Based on a review of the history of the employee engagement construct and its measurement, we define workforce engagement as the aggregate of the work engagement experiences of individual employees in an organization. In contrast to most research on employee engagement, we study companies rather than individuals and the companies represent a diverse set of industries. We hypothesize and demonstrate on a sample of (up to) 102 publicly traded companies that workforce engagement significantly predicts organizational financial (adjusting for industry: Return on Assets, Net Margin but not Tobin's q) and customer metrics (the American Customer Satisfaction Index and the Harris Reputation Quotient) 1 and 2 years after the workforce engagement data were collected. In addition, using a split‐sample approach to avoid method bias, we hypothesize and show that (a) company organizational practices (the strongest correlate), supervisory support, and work attributes are significant correlates of workforce engagement and (b) that workforce engagement mediates the relationship between these correlates of engagement and the organizational performance metrics. Implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.     

Thermodynamics,economics and systems thinking: What role for air capture of CO2?

Air capture has recently been advanced by several parties as a solution to the problem of constraining – and ultimately reducing – atmospheric CO₂ in response to climate change. However, there are significant barriers pertaining to scale, energy needs and cost, which will hugely challenge the effectiveness and practicality of air capture. This paper examines the thermodynamics, energetics and economics and politics of air capture. These compare unfavourably with alternative approaches to atmospheric greenhouse gas reduction. An analysis is made of the energy cost of the one favoured DAC technology for which experimental results are available in the open literature – temperature/vacuum swing adsorption, and of one point source capture technology – oxyfiring of refinery FCCUs. We also examine the engineering effort required to implement atmospheric capture on a scale at which it could significantly reduce atmospheric levels of CO₂; and questions are addressed regarding its practicability and appropriateness. The analysis demonstrates that air capture remains at best a peripheral activity, at worst a distraction, until point sources of greenhouse gas emissions such as power stations, industrial flue gases, shale gas wellheads, anaerobic digestion plants and landfill sites have been completely decarbonised. When these and so many other unaddressed factors are affecting our global climate, the pursuit air capture, the ultimate “end-of-pipe” solution, is inappropriate.     

基于改进成功流法的消防系统可靠性研究

在多信号输入系统的可靠性研究中,传统GO法存在计算复杂、易出现误差和遗漏的缺点。将卡诺图化简法引入传统GO运算,利用其“合并同项,简化运算”的特点构建研究多信号输入系统可靠性的新GO模型。将其应用于预作用喷水灭火系统,对具有多启动方式的给水泵进行可靠性分析,并与事件树运算结果比较,证明新GO模型适用于具有多信号输入系统的可靠性研究。研究表明,通过采取措施降低多信号元器件故障概率可以提高系统整体可靠性。     

Global bike share: What the data tells us about road safety

IntroductionBike share has emerged as a rapidly growing mode of transport in over 800 cities globally, up from just a handful in the 1990s. Some analysts had forecast a rise in the number of bicycle crashes after the introduction of bike share, but empirical research on bike share safety is rare. The goal of this study is to examine the impact of bike share programs on cycling safety.MethodsThe paper has two substudies. Study 1 was a secondary analysis of longitudinal hospital injury data from the Graves et al. (2014) study. It compared cycling safety in cities that introduced bike share programs with cities that did not. Study 2 combined ridership data with crash data of selected North American and European cities to compare bike share users to other cyclists.ResultsStudy 1 indicated that the introduction of a bike share system was associated with a reduction in cycling injury risk. Study 2 found that bike share users were less likely than other cyclists to sustain fatal or severe injuries.ConclusionsOn a per kilometer basis, bike share is associated with decreased risk of both fatal and non-fatal bicycle crashes when compared to private bike riding.Practical ApplicationsThe results of this study suggest that concerns of decreased levels of cycling safety are unjustified and should not prevent decision makers from introducing public bike share schemes, especially if combined with other safety measures like traffic calming.