Green management practices and firm performance: A case of container terminal operations

This study aims to investigate the elements of green management practices (GMP) and its association with firm performance. A GMP model that consists of the key elements of GMP is proposed and firm performance indicators are formulated to provide a foundation for the adoption of GMP. Hutchison Port Holding (HPH) is selected as the case to illustrate the application of the proposed GMP model in a real-life situation. The findings suggest that GMP consists of the following elements: (1) cooperation with supply chain partners, (2) environmentally friendly operation, and (3) internal management support. Findings of this study also indicate a positive relationship exists between the adoption of GMP and firm performance. Hence, operators in the container terminal industry should strive to adopt GMP in order to achieve good firm performance including improvement in terminal throughput, profitability, and efficient and cost-effective operation.     

On Valuing Information in Adaptive‐Management Models

Abstract: Active adaptive management looks at the benefit of using strategies that may be suboptimal in the near term but may provide additional information that will facilitate better management in the future. In many adaptive‐management problems that have been studied, the optimal active and passive policies (accounting for learning when designing policies and designing policy on the basis of current best information, respectively) are very similar. This seems paradoxical; when faced with uncertainty about the best course of action, managers should spend very little effort on actively designing programs to learn about the system they are managing. We considered two possible reasons why active and passive adaptive solutions are often similar. First, the benefits of learning are often confined to the particular case study in the modeled scenario, whereas in reality information gained from local studies is often applied more broadly. Second, management objectives that incorporate the variance of an estimate may place greater emphasis on learning than more commonly used objectives that aim to maximize an expected value. We explored these issues in a case study of Merri Creek, Melbourne, Australia, in which the aim was to choose between two options for revegetation. We explicitly incorporated monitoring costs in the model. The value of the terminal rewards and the choice of objective both influenced the difference between active and passive adaptive solutions. Explicitly considering the cost of monitoring provided a different perspective on how the terminal reward and management objective affected learning. The states for which it was optimal to monitor did not always coincide with the states in which active and passive adaptive management differed. Our results emphasize that spending resources on monitoring is only optimal when the expected benefits of the options being considered are similar and when the pay‐off for learning about their benefits is large.     

广东省畜牧粪便中喹诺酮类和磺胺类抗生素的含量与分布特征研究

利用超声提取-高效液相色谱技术分析广东省20个规模化猪牛养殖场粪便中4种喹诺酮类(QNs)和4种磺胺类(SAs)抗生素的含量与分布特征.结果表明,猪粪中喹诺酮类和磺胺类化合物均全部被检出,前者总含量(QNs,鲜重,下同)在24.5～1516.2 μg/kg之间,平均为581.0 μg/kg,以恩诺沙星和环丙沙星为主;后者总含量(SAs)在1925.9～13399.5 μg/kg之间,平均为4403.9 μg/kg,以磺胺甲基嘧啶和磺胺甲唑为主.牛粪中喹诺酮类化合物也全部被检出,磺胺类化合物检出率在90%以上,QNs在73.2～ 1328.0 μg/kg之间,平均为572.9 μg/kg,以诺氟沙星和环丙沙星为主;SAs在1039.4～15930.3 μg/kg之间,平均为3787.7 μg/kg,以磺胺甲唑和磺胺甲基嘧啶为主.不同地区畜牧粪便中喹诺酮类和磺胺类化合物的含量与组成特征有明显差异,广州市猪粪和牛粪中两类抗生素的含量均较高,而佛山市、深圳市牛粪中磺胺-5-甲氧嘧啶和磺胺二甲嘧啶均低于检测限.     

Sudden-onset disaster resilience considering functionality improvement planning: An upstream oil and gas company

The present paper presents a quantitative approach to evaluate organizational resilience in sudden-onset disasters considering preparedness actions (PAs). The resilience triangle concept is extended and gradual improvement of the level of functionality (LF) strategy is examined as PAs. Robustness and rapidity measures are considered as loss of LF and recovery time to indicate the overall disaster resilience. Besides, the resourcefulness and redundancy measures are considered pre-determined response plans and PAs aimed to improve disaster resilience. Two mathematical models are developed by applying these measures. Thereafter, graphical analytics are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of PAs and provide a better outlook for decision-makers. Then, mathematical analyses are conducted to show how the PAs affect resilience measures. It is mathematically proved that PAs exert considerable impacts on recovery time, loss of LF, and robustness. To illustrate the application of the proposed approach, it is applied to an upstream oil and gas company in the field of exploration and production. The results suggest that the approach is significantly effective in disaster response, planning, and mitigation.