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Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

Evaluating the performance of supply chains is a convoluted task because of the complexity that is inextricably linked to the structure of the aforesaid chains. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present an integrated approach for evaluating and sizing real-life health-care supply chains in the presence of interval data.

To achieve the objective, this paper illustrates an approach called Latin hypercube sampling by replacement (LHSR) to identify a set of precise data from the interval data; then the standard data envelopment analysis (DEA) models can be used to assess the relative efficiencies of the supply chains under evaluation. A certain level of data aggregation is suggested to improve the discriminatory power of the DEA models and an experimental design is conducted to size the supply chains under assessment.

The newly developed integrated methodology assists the decision-makers (DMs) in comparing their real-life supply chains against peers and sizing their resources to achieve a certain level of production.

The proposed integrated DEA-based approach has been successfully implemented to suggest an appropriate structure to the actual public pharmaceutical supply chain in Morocco.

The originality of the proposed approach comes from the development of an integrated methodology to evaluate and size real-life health-care supply chains while taking into account interval data. This developed integrated technique certainly adds value to the health-care DMs for modelling their supply chains in today's world.

This paper develops a cross-sectionally augmented distributed lag (CS-DL) approach to the estimation of long-run effects in large dynamic heterogeneous panel data models with cross-sectionally dependent errors. The asymptotic distribution of the CS-DL estimator is derived under coefficient heterogeneity in the case where the time dimension (T ) and the cross-section dimension (N ) are both large. The CS-DL approach is compared with more standard panel data estimators that are based on autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) specifications. It is shown that unlike the ARDL-type estimator, the CS-DL estimator is robust to misspecification of dynamics and error serial correlation. The theoretical results are illustrated with small sample evidence obtained by means of Monte Carlo simulations, which suggest that the performance of the CS-DL approach is often superior to the alternative panel ARDL estimates, particularly when T is not too large and lies in the range of 30–50.

The purpose of this paper is to extract the optimal time allocation of weekly hours among work, sleep, sports, and internet use for 16 different demographic groups.

The agent wishes to minimize the gap between his or her actual and optimal allocation for each activity. His or her actual allocation of time for each activity is affected by his or her allocations for other activities and by exogenous variables. A system of simultaneous equations is constructed, with the four levels of time allocation as the endogenous variables. Using a cross-section database of 928 Israel residents, the authors estimate the system and predict the actual allocation of time. Inserting the forecast equations into the agents’ target function and differentiating by each actual time allocation, the authors extract the optimal time allocation for 16 different demographic groups.

The results make it clear that the optimal desired level of sleep hours is highest among married Jews and non-Jews of both genders, whereas the desired level of work hours is highest among female non-Jews whose children have a computer and among married males, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Female Jews and non-Jews wish to allocate the most hours to internet use, while married males of both nationalities wish to allocate the fewest. The desired level of sports hours is highest among married and non-married Jews. Examining the effect of age on time allocation, the main findings show a very significant cutback in allocation of hours for sleep among agents at age 20.8 and an increase of about 2.5 hours of sleep among agents aged 60.8, both relative to those aged 40.8.

The original model presented here brings a non-traditional approach to the analysis of time allocation. The authors believe that each agent wishes that he or she could allocate his or her time for personal benefit on the basis of a theoretical apportionment determined on the basis of experience and tendencies. Even though an agent’s actual time allocation may be affected by many factors, he or she still has a sense of disutility when the actual allocation deviates from selected optimum.

This study demonstrated that women EMBA graduates experience broadened perspectives. They “think more broadly”, “understand more comprehensively” and report the “life changing” outcomes expected by their sponsoring organizations. The focus was on the development of women managers from specialist perspectives to a more integrated generalist perspective. Personal development, and career development literatures provided the theoretical basis for this study. Data were collected using invited essays, and semi‐structured interviews. Evidence of change appeared in the essays and the interviews. The essays indicated graduates experienced increased confidence, cognitive flexibility, and broadened perspectives. The interviews indicated: greater self‐determination, more flexible approaches to roles, greater value of self and time, more process‐oriented, increased understanding of self and others, the meaning of success was competence, and that competence was valued over political gamesmanship.

BEFORE the actual construction of a hull is begun, all the lines on the blue prints must be reproduced to full scale on a scrive board. This is called “setting out,” or in some shops “developing.”