Friday, December 28, 2007

Dinosaur Car Producers On The Edge

Via
Globe And Mail

2008: The make-or-break year for the Detroit Three

Are the companies moving quickly enough to compete globally?


By JEREMY CATO
Globe and Mail

This year, Ford, GM, and Chrysler's combined share of the critical U.S. light-vehicle market stands at 51.1 per cent, down from 53.9 per cent in 2006, from 60 per cent just four years ago and from 81 per cent in 1984.

In November, the Detroit Three slipped under a 50-per-cent monthly share for the second time ever. The first time was in July.

The steady decline of the Detroit Three is, of course, hugely important in the United States, but in Canada, too. Detroit's auto makers have major production facilities in Canada — as do the Japanese, though on a smaller scale. Last year, of the 2.6 million vehicles assembled in Canada, the Detroit Three manufactured nearly 1.8 million of them.

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  • Problem Of The Year For 2008: Information Overload

    Via
    WebProNews

    Information Overload Costing $650 Billion

    By Mike Sachoff

    Information overload is being called the 2008 "Problem-of-the-Year" by research firm Basex.

    Information overload reduces employee efficiency and overall productivity and has been flagged as a key challenge for companies that operate in the knowledge economy. The cost of unnecessary interruptions is estimated to be $650 billion per year in the United States according to Basex, which took into account, decreased productivity and stifled innovation.

    "The 'Problem-of-the-Year' designation tells us how serious an issue information overload has become," said Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex. "Nothing has been more disruptive to the way we work than information overload."

    No matter where one is working the chances of completing a task without interruption is small. "Normally we designate a person or product of the year," said David M. Goldes, president and senior analyst at Basex. "2008 is the year we begin to solve the problem of information overload in a substantive way."

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  • Eight business technology trends to watch

    From the McKinsey Quarterly
    Special to CNET News.com

    Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business.

    Through our work and research, we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

    Managing relationships
    1. Distributing co-creation

    The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries. Today, in the high-technology, consumer product, and automotive sectors, among others, companies routinely involve customers, suppliers, small specialist businesses, and independent contractors in the creation of new products. Outsiders offer insights that help shape product development, but companies typically control the innovation process. Technology now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders--co-creation--in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control.

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  • Wales Government: Million Sick Days

    Council staff’s million day sickie

    by Steffan Rhys
    Western Mail

    COUNCIL workers in Wales took more than one million sick days in the last financial year, the Western Mail can reveal today.

    The figures equate to each local authority employee taking 11.3 days a year off sick, although in some councils the number is as high as 12.8 days – equal to two and a half working weeks each.

    This is more than double the average six days a year taken off sick in the private sector.

    The figures, produced by the Local Government Data Unit Wales, have been condemned for exposing a level of “huge inefficiencies” in Wales’ public sector.


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  • Sleeping More And Producing More

    Via
    Sydney Morning Herald

    Annual leave: a lot to be desired

    By Ross Gittins

    When Kevin Rudd won the election he warned his ministers they could take Christmas Day and Boxing Day off but, apart from that, they were to "hit the ground running".

    The new Government had a lot of things it needed to do and it was imperative to make an early start. For a time it seemed he wasn't joking, which made me wonder whether Rudd is as smart as he looks.

    Now the word is that Rudd will be taking two weeks off and his ministers will be allowed to do the same. Even so, a fortnight is hardly enough.

    If people are to perform their jobs efficiently, they need proper holidays. That would be particularly true for politicians who campaigned seven days a week for months before the election. It makes far more sense for them to take a decent break and come back refreshed and re-created.

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  • Global-Warming Mitigation Action On India's Agenda

    Via
    The Economic Times

    Following the Bali climate-change conference, the writing on the wall is clear. India would need to chalk out a credible roadmap for mitigating emission of green-house gases (GHGs). Global-warming mitigation action needs to be very much on the policy agenda. An integrated game plan would mean huge economic benefits, lead to efficiency gains and productivity improvement across the board, and be thoroughly environmentally benign as well. Much is at stake.

    The Bali meet did reach a consensus on the “urgency” of addressing global warming and climate change. It is welcome that the international community now explicitly recognises that “deep cuts in global emissions will be required.” The framework that has been agreed upon to hammer out a formal protocol two years hence is that, on the one hand, the high-income economies would be required to engineer “quantified” emission cuts sans binding targets.

    On the other hand, lower-income economies would need to seriously consider “measurable, reportable and verifiable” mitigation action. The heat is on, or so it would appear. But clear progress on the mitigation front, complete with the attendant increase in economic efficiency, would be very much in our interest. In fact, with a policy focus on mitigation action in energy supply, we would stand to reap vastly disproportionate, economy-wide returns and ample payoff.

    Now, the assessment reports of the United Nations mandated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly show that the single biggest cause, by far, of global GHG emissions is thermal power generation. It is also a fact that the average pan-India thermal efficiency rate in coal-fired power plants — which denotes the percentage energy content of fuel being converted into electrical energy — is much too low, just about 28%.

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  • Monday, December 24, 2007

    High Canadian Dollar Can Spark Restructuring

    Via
    The Star

    By Sean Geobey

    With each record set by the Canadian dollar, talk of crisis in Canada's manufacturing sector grows louder.

    Productivity growth here has trailed that of the United States for more than a quarter century, and now without a low dollar keeping our exports competitive, the decline of the sector is inevitable. At least that's what we're told.

    Yet that same high dollar, coupled with a little ingenuity, gives us a rare chance to build a competitive and environmentally sustainable economy. Most of us know that a high Canadian dollar makes those shopping trips to the United States a great way to save money when expanding our winter wardrobes.

    What we sometimes forget is that the same thing making a jacket in Buffalo so cheap applies to new machinery and equipment as well.

    Historically, Canada has purchased a great deal of this machinery and equipment from abroad. Whether this has been used to process tar sands in Alberta, log forests in B.C. or build cars in Ontario, the tools we need to produce things in this country are usually produced somewhere else.

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  • What Is Competitiveness?

    Via
    Huffington Post

    By GERALD BRACEY

    In the last post, I challenged the notion that test score for elementary and secondary students are related to the U. S. ability to compete in the global economy. In this one, I want to examine what does contribute to competitiveness. First, though, we have to take a look at the concept of competitiveness. Many people take it as a zero-sum game: If you win, I lose. Not so. The computer chip was invented in the U.S. Many other nations benefited. If some young medical student in Nigeria invents a cure for AIDS, the world, not just Nigeria, will win.

    The World Economic Forum defines competitiveness as the "set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country." A competitive country is one that increases the prosperity of its own people. The WEF uses a set of 12 "pillars of competitiveness" to evaluate a nation. It is a capitalist-oriented organization, but the socialist countries of Scandinavia get high ranks. Overall, the United States ranks #1. The numbers in parentheses below are the U. S. ranks, out of 131 ranked nations for each pillar.

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  • Report: Command & Control Negative Approach Hinders Productivity

    Via
    Training Zone

    Negative Management Styles
    Most Common in UK Organisations


    The 'command and control' approach to work is hindering UK productivity, according to research. Performance levels in workplaces are suffering as overbearing and dogmatic management practices top the list of management styles.

    The report into the quality of working life, which questioned 1,511 managers, also found a high rate of sickness and absence levels in organisations exhibiting ‘negative’ management styles.

    The research, published by the Chartered Management Institute and Simplyhealth, assessed the impact of differing managerial styles on motivation, health and productivity. Key findings include:

    • Tight reins: the most widely experienced management styles in UK organisations are bureaucratic (40 per cent), reactive (37 per cent) and authoritarian (30 per cent). Worryingly, all three have become increasingly common; the top two have increased by 6 per cent since 2004, with authoritarian leadership also rising 5 per cent

    • Index linked: the research shows empowering managerial styles are most associated with growing businesses. More than 1 in 3 (37 per cent) of organisations performing well are cited as having 'accessible' management teams, whereas 56 per cent of declining companies exhibit bureaucracy and 25 per cent create a 'secretive' environment

    • Sicknote culture: only 1 in 10 respondents said absence increased in organisations with 'innovative' and 'trusting' cultures. This was in contrast to 45 per cent suggesting sickness rates have gone up where employers were 'suspicious'.

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  • Why Retail Is Important

    Via
    Limemint.com

    India’s continued rise on the global stage
    depends on reform and advance in this sector


    By Nick Schulz

    What does a retailer in the West know that an Indian does not?” That was the pointed question asked last week by the Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh. The question was triggered by a report in this paper about a new government-sponsored study on the impact of organized retail chains on small shops.

    Singh believes the answer is “nothing”. Alas, while Singh has asked the right question, he gives the wrong answer. The real answer is, “a lot”. Understanding how and why this is so will help Indian policymakers make the right choices when it comes to the future of Indian retail.

    A few years ago the McKinsey Global Institute released a magnificent study of what determines why some countries grow rich and others don’t. The key: rising productivity over time.
    Within countries, the McKinsey researchers observed startling variety in productivity rates across industries. For example, some countries might have high productivity in automobiles, but low productivity in construction. Others might be tops in electronics but laggards in transportation.

    The study’s most striking conclusions were about the economic importance of the retail sector. William Lewis, the founding director of the institute, tells this tale in his book The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty and the Threat to Global Stability. Productivity in the retail sector is critical for understanding the relative success rates of national economies.

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  • Research Award Recognizes Constant Demand For Improved Productivity

    Via
    Malaysian National News Agency

    MPOB Wins Excellence In Research Award

    KUALA LUMPUR,(Bernama) -- The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB)'s Advanced Biotechnology and Breeding Centre (ABBC) has been named as the recipient of the 2007 Frost &Sullivan Asia Pacific Excellence in Research award.

    Announcing the award at a dinner here tonight, MPOB said the award recognised its research advancement in the application of biotechnology for crop improvement.

    The award was bestowed on ABBC, a unit of MPOB, for its advancement in research and successful development of technologies in the area of biotechnology and breeding of planting materials.

    MPOB, via ABBC, focuses on the various aspects of oil palm biotechnology such as metabolics, plant transformation, tissue culture, gene expression, genomics, breeding and genetic engineering to maximise productivity via increased yields, and improving the quality of palm oil through value-added downstream products.

    According to MPOB, one of the main challenges for the palm oil industry is the constant demand for improved productivity and efficiency.

    Sunday, December 16, 2007

    Boost Education Spending To Improve Productivity

    Via
    Jerusalem Post

    Noting that Israel falls well below OECD countries in worker productivity, economists at Jerusalem's Van Leer Institute on Sunday urged the government to increase budgetary allocations to improve the country's much-maligned education system and public sector institutions.

    Improving education will raise flagging worker productivity, which a report, issued ahead of tomorrow's Van Leer Conference on Economics and Society, indicated has grown only 1.1 percent over the past year compared to 1.9% growth in OECD countries.

    Between 1980-2005, worker productivity grew only 1.17% compared to 1.94% average growth in Austria, Ireland, the UK, the US, Spain, France and Sweden.

    Ireland, noted the Van Leer report, which demonstrated the highest increase of worker productivity over the 25-year period, had the proper balance between macro-economic policy, worker rights, the collaborative agreements between business and government, economic reforms, increase in foreign investments, investments in education and reforms in the public sector.

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  • DNA Processing Innovations

    Via
    Laboratorytalk.com

    The new GeneMapper ID-X software application provides computerised forensic expertise that streamlines the routine review of data required for DNA analysis, eliminating redundant tasks.

    Offender sample testing has been driving the need for expert systems.

    The Washington State Patrol is experiencing a rapid increase of DNA samples to be processed partly because of the success of its initiative to take DNA from weapons, including handguns, rifles and knives, used in felony crimes.

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  • Report: China Growth Unsustainable

    Report says China's Economic Growth Model
    is not sustainable: Undervalued renminbi/yuan
    "very little to do" with trade surplus


    By Finfacts Team


    Facing the world's largest trade surplus, China's exceptionally high growth is creating serious national and international economic imbalances and is unlikely to be sustained, concludes a report by the US Conference Board, released on Monday.

    The Conference Board is a private US economic research organisation.

    The Conference Board issued the report through its China Center for Business and Economics, based in Beijing. While China's government clearly recognizes the risks associated with the country's current growth trajectory and is undertaking measures to reduce the trade surplus and to spur consumption growth at home, it faces serious difficulties in reversing the trend of recent years.

    China's rapidly expanding trade surplus with the US has "very little to do" with an undervalued renminbi/yuan (In Mandarin, "renminbi" means the people's currency; "yuan" means unit), and faster appreciation of the currency, though welcome, would be "no panacea", according to the report.

    "Faster currency appreciation, especially when combined with greater flexibility, would make it easier for the government to redress internal and external economic imbalances, but it is not a panacea and appropriate calibration is difficult," the Conference Board report said.

    "Although an undervalued currency contributes to China's trade surplus, it is not a primary cause of it and has very little to do with the bilateral United States-China trade deficit," it added.

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  • Monday, December 10, 2007

    Powder Coatings Plant Increases Production

    Via
    ManufacturingTalk.com

    Screw feeders improve
    powder coatings productivity



    Latest agitated screw feeders and chutes have increased production and improved containment at a leading manufacturer's powder coatings plant powder coating manufacturer.

    Becker Powder Coatings, has installed new agitated screw feeders and chutes. Supplied by solids handling equipment manufacturer, Ajax Equipment, the equipment will increase production and improve containment at Becker's Liverpool, UK factory. Becker Powder Coatings manufactures thermosetting powders for a wide range of industries including the automotive industry where the coatings protect cars and motorcycles produced by major manufacturers.

    Mobile screw elevator for handling bulk materials Ajax Equipment, a solids handling equipment specialist, has developed a high capacity, mobile screw elevator designed to lift materials up to height of 6 metres

    Accurate and consistent particle size control and formulation of the coatings are important, so users can achieve optimum transfer efficiency.


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  • Monday, December 03, 2007

    Kuwait Professor Confronts Productivity Issues

    Tackle low productivity of Kuwaitis at work place

    By Dr Khaled Al-Jenfawi
    Kuwait University

    While many Kuwaiti MPs continue to discuss various solutions to what some of them argue to be an escalating social and financial problem (the need to increase citizens’ salaries), they seem to ignore an important fact about the whole issue: any future solution to this brainteaser must take into consideration that the average Kuwaiti employee’s ‘low productivity’ must be tackled, discussed and elevated to an acceptable level. This acuteness in dealing with this issue is crucial if we wish to see Kuwait transform into a regional financial center.

    This might be a bit hard to digest the first time especially when you know that: ‘Everybody is complaining about it’. However, we don’t need Mr Grandgrind’s ‘facts’ (in Dickens’ novel Hard Times) to remind us that our average productivity in the workplace is declining. One of course cannot deny the existence in Kuwait highly successful individuals who produce the amount of work equal to what they receive at the end of the month. But, low productivity, especially in government jobs, has a greater if not the greatest impact on our current and future financial and economic situations.

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  • Flextime And Productivity In India

    Via
    The Times Of India

    Now, men opt for flexible working hours

    By Sujata Dutta Sachdeva,TNN

    NEW DELHI: Employees see it as one of the best perks to come their way. As companies realise the benefits of flexible timings, they are amending their HR policies to offer various options. Interestingly, what began as an HR sop largely for women, is now attracting a lot of men. Many men are now opting for flexi-timings to have better work-life balance.

    Debasisha Padhi for example. An advisory consultant at IBM, Bangalore, Padhi opted for flexi-timings from the time he joined the organisation. "I hardly go to office more than once or twice a month. Other times, I work from home," he says. He can log in any time from the comfort of his home. Moreover, it also gives him time to study for his MBA.

    "What's more, I save two hours of travelling time everyday. Also, small errands can be done easily," Padhi explains.

    HR managers in firms that offer flexi-timings, say they have seen a rise in the number of men opting for it. "At IBM an equal number of men and women ask for flexi-timings," says Kalpana Veeraraghavan, Asia Pacific leader for IBM Global Work Life Fund. At SunGard Offshore Services in Bangalore, nearly 90% employees have opted for it. Of these 70% are men. Similarly, Noida-based IT company InterraIT has seen a large number of men opting for flexi-timings. "Nearly one-fifth of our employees have opted for it. And out of this, about one-fifth are men," says Asoke Laha, president.

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  • APS Coordinators Seminar 08

    The next APS Coordinators Seminar is scheduled for June 2 through June 6, 2008 in the Pac Rim.

    It will be held in the Pacific Rim this time as the last session was held in Europe. The specific location will be announced shortly.

    To date our scheduled speakers are:

    Dr. Victor Vroom, John Searle Professor of Management at Yale University, who will be doing his special presentation on Decision Making and Leadership;

    Dr. Robert Peterson, Professor at IMPAC University, who will be doing an intensive workshop on Six Sigma, and;

    Patrick Maes, the principal behind an Organizational Development firm in Belgium.

    Other speakers may be added in the future.

    Please begin the process of speaking to your Coordinators about their attendance at this event. They have enough time now to plan and budget it with their companies and organizations.

    Coordinators or the companies they work for are responsible for their own travel to the Seminar and their own hotel, meal and incidentel expenses. There will be a final "graduation" dinner as well as a welcome cocktail hour which will be paid for by APS. Coffee and tea during the day will be provided by APS.

    All seminar costs, such as textbooks, trainers costs and so forth are absorbed by APS. The seminar itself is free for Cooridnators who have been registered as Individual Members through their companies Institutional Membership since our last event in Amsterdam in 2004. A seminar of this caliber would cost approximately $5,000 USD per person in the United States and Europe. The Coordinators must be able to communicate in English to a reasonable degree as the entire program will be presented in English. This is not necessarily fluent English, but very limited English will be a waste of their time and their companies money.

    Bob Jacobson, MPS
    Chairman, APS

    Can't Think Now, I'm Busy

    Via
    The Age, Australia

    By John Watson


    IN MY lifetime, the number of Australians has doubled. When last I looked, our population was estimated at 21,150,121 and growing by one every one minute and 44 seconds. A second country has sprung up alongside the one of 10.5 million people recorded at the 1961 census, almost literally so as half of today's population is either foreign-born or born to a migrant parent. Only a minority would argue that Australia has not benefited from the resulting evolution of a more diverse, interesting and dynamic society, but it is also a more crowded country.

    Australians are crowded not only by other people, but as a result of countless technological and social developments that, I suspect, have more serious implications for our collective capacity to think, create and remember. The reasons are to be found in the way the brain works, but more of the science later. Such thoughts have nagged at me since I read the writer Paul Theroux's reflections in The New York Times on "America the Overfull", in which he lamented the loss of "a country of enormous silence and ordinariness (and) empty spaces". Theroux acknowledged the seductions of nostalgia — "Yes, it is just silly and fogeyish to yearn for that simpler and smaller world of the past" — but the lost world he describes holds lessons for the creative, innovative nation that Australia aspires to be, as we have been told ad nauseam this past election year.

    "I grew up in a country of sudden and consoling lulls, which gave life a kind of pattern and punctuation, unknown now," Theroux wrote. "It was typified by the somnolence of Sundays … There were empty parts of the day, of the week, of the year …" Of course, some people still see the value in setting aside such time each week in defiance of this 24/7 society. (A New Yorker cartoon by Robert Mankoff makes wonderful play of this by depicting a man bearing a briefcase and speaking into his mobile phone as he walks along a busy subway platform: "And remember, if you need anything, I'm available 24/6.")

    For me, the contemporary relevance to Australia's "clever country" aspirations lies, paradoxically, in Theroux's recollections of a quieter past and, in particular, of the solitude of a long drive of the sort that we can rarely experience on today's crowded highways, even if we chose not to hop onto the next cheap and convenient commuter flight. Theroux paints the picture perfectly: "Late at night, in mostplaces I knew, there was almost no traffic and driving, a meditative activity, could cast a spell. Behind the wheel, gliding along, I was keenly aware of being an American in America, on a road that was also metaphorical, making my way through life unhindered, developing ideas, making decisions, liberated by the flight through this darkness and silence."

    When did you last have several hours of unbroken, idle contemplation to yourself? Our lives are crowded, noisier, faster, in almost every way. People, technology such as mobile phones, the internet and other mass communication, our ways of work, have all eaten into our time and space. The imperatives of productivity and efficiency demand that not a minute be wasted. Time is money. But the cost to our quality of thought is immeasurable. We are too busy to think.

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  • Musings On Productivity

    Via
    Jamaica Observer


    What you see is what you get (WYPIWYG)

    Dennis Chung
    Friday, November 30, 2007


    WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) is a computer terminology that refers to the way in which a file is output in relation to how it is viewed on the monitor. As it says, what you see on the monitor is the way the file will be output. Before WYSIWYG technology the representation on the screen may have includedreferences that would not be shown on the output.

    Based on this I have coined the acronym WYPIWIG, what you pay is what you get. And I think of this mostly in relation to the way we approach human resources in Jamaica.

    Sometimes when I see 'Butch' Stewart, he proudly refers to the fact that his hotel workers are among the best trained in the world and attributes this in large part to the success of his chain. In fact, he will tell you that on occasions when he visits a hotel overseas he will see one or two former Sandals workers in management positions. His philosophy: hire good people and watch your business grow.

    Recruitment process

    This of course is one of the biggest problems in the public and private sector. Many hirers believe that the way to business success is to spend as little money as possible on human resources, so that the greatest effort in hiring is to try to get someone with acceptable qualifications for the lowest cost. The result, of course, is that the 'critical thinking' required to perform the job better than the competition, and driving the company to new levelsof efficiency, is missing.

    They would much rather spend the money on internal training, fixing errors, or marketing, than getting someone very capable who will prevent such expenses. Is there any question then as to why we have companies that find it difficult to compete internationally?

    Some years ago a very senior manager said to me that the main advice he would have for someone is hire good people, irrespective of how long they stay with you, as the value they could add in a year far outweighs the value a mediocre person adds in five years. When that company was facing challenges (driven by global changes) it was the quality of the human resources there that turned it around, and today it is one of the more successful companies.


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  • Arkansas Food Scientists in Top 10 for 'Scholarly Productivity'

    FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's department of food science was ranked in the top 10 nationally for "faculty scholarly productivity" by Academic Analytics, which recently released its 2006-2007 ranking of doctoral research programs at 357 universities and colleges. In the agricultural sciences category, the University of Arkansas was ranked No. 22. Only two other Southeastern Conference schools, Florida and Kentucky, were also ranked in the top 25 for agriculture.

    The index, partly financed by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, objectively rates scholarly output based on the number of book and journal articles published by faculty members, journal citations, awards, honors and grants received. Rankings are published online at http://chronicle.com/stats/productivity.

    This is the third year of what Academic Analytics says is a purely objective measure of doctoral research programs in contrast to other rankings that rely heavily on reputation, says founder Lawrence Martin of Stony Brook. The company also provides a variety of studies to help institutions evaluate programs.

    At No. 10, the Arkansas food science program, with 12 faculty members, is in the company of larger universities with double or triple the number of faculty members. Wisconsin is ranked No. 1., the University of California at Davis is No. 9, and Florida -- the only other Southeastern Conference school in the top 10 for food science -- is No. 8.

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  • African Countries Note Productivity Growth

    Introductory Remarks At the Conference
    on the Role of the Private Sector
    in Economic Development and Regional Integration in the Maghreb

    By Murilo Portugal
    Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
    Tunis, Tunisia, November 28, 2007

    1. Ministers, Governors, and distinguished guests,

    2. I would like to thank the Tunisian authorities for hosting this important conference on the Role of the Private Sector in Economic Development and Regional Integration in the Maghreb and say how pleased I am to be here. I would like to express my appreciation to the delegations of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, and Morocco for attending the conference. I would also like to extend a special welcome to representatives from the private sector, whose presence is essential to the success of this gathering.

    3. The new Managing Director, Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who knows the region very well, fully supports this initiative to energize discussions for a deeper integration of Maghreb countries and collaboration toward a prosperous future for the region. He asked me to convey to you his best wishes for success in this important endeavor.

    4. I am confident that this forum, by bringing together private and public sector representatives from all five Maghreb countries, can be a catalyst for regional cooperation and a base for developing new regional initiatives aimed at expanding the private sector, thereby strengthening its positive impact on growth. The quality of the discussions that took place during the technical meetings over the past two days is certainly encouraging and I would like to thank the experts that participated in these meetings for their productive preparatory work.

    5. This is my second visit to the Maghreb as Deputy Managing Director of the IMF. During my first visit to Morocco and Tunisia in April 2007, I was able to see first-hand the impressive achievements of this region, its great potential as well as the many challenges that it faces. All the Maghreb countries have undertaken important growth-enhancing reforms over the past two decades, placing considerable effort into achieving macroeconomic stability, liberalizing trade, strengthening the financial sector, and improving the business climate.

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