類似的見解 許多人都說過 如W. Edwards Deming 博士等
台灣最需改變的是教育問題 (李登輝)
2011年10月23日 星期日
Japan’s Standardized Baseballs Are Popular With Pitchers
Japan’s Standardized Baseballs Are Popular With Pitchers
Mizuno
The new ball used for all top-league games in Japan, made by Mizuno, has features that make it popular among pitchers.
By BRAD LEFTON
Published: October 22, 2011
TOKYO — Unlike Major League Baseball, for whom Rawlings has been the official supplier of baseballs since 1977, Japan’s top league has long used multiple manufacturers.
Related
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The Fierce Imagination of Haruki Murakami (October 23, 2011)
In any given season, as many as nine manufacturers had supplied baseballs to Japan’s 12 teams. Many clubs, in fact, contracted with multiple suppliers and freely switched the balls they used in their home games depending on the series, the month or some other variable that had to be revealed in advance to the commissioner’s office.
Citing rising costs and declining domestic production, Commissioner Ryozo Kato began the tedious and touchy process of unifying Japan’s ball last year. Mizuno emerged as the lone supplier.
But old customs are hard to break, and in tradition-bound Japan, the move to a unified ball comes with a twist: it is required only for official games played between major league teams. Individual clubs can continue choosing their own baseballs for minor league games, spring training games and practices. According to the commissioner’s office, at least two teams that contracted with multiple baseball makers last year, the Hanshin Tigers and the Yakult Swallows, continue to use those balls in unsanctioned events.
In Japanese baseball, power has traditionally rested with the teams. Franchises have operated independently on a variety of issues, including deciding which ball manufacturers to contract with, much as players in the United States and Japan decide which manufacturers’ bats, gloves and spikes they use.
In Japan, a culture evolved in which sporting goods makers, especially smaller regional ones, became dependent on their relationships with local clubs to supply thousands of balls each year.
“In order to build relationships that stand the test of time, you have to be willing to endure lots of hardships on your customers’ behalf,” Katsuhisa Matsuzaki, a spokesman for N.P.B, said in Japanese, describing the traditional arrangement. “For a team to then turn around and say to a supplier that persevered, ‘Sorry, we don’t you need anymore,’ is not the Japanese way.”
So instead of trying to undo longstanding relationships, Japan’s commissioner’s office established standards over the years to attain a degree of uniformity among the game balls being produced by multiple manufacturers.
That began as far back as 1950, when the Central and Pacific Leagues came under one governing umbrella. Over the years, standards pertaining to the balls were gradually tightened. This happened, for example, in 1981, after a game was delayed by 20 minutes as one team accused another of using a suspicious ball with extra zip. But until this year, teams could use any ball that adhered to the standards.
The new Mizuno ball for this season has been called the noncarrying ball, a reference to the effect of the lower-elasticity rubber that encases the cork center. Not surprisingly, pitchers like the new ball for that and other subtle changes they can use to their advantage.
“It breaks better, moves more advantageously for the pitcher,” Hisashi Iwakuma of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, speaking in Japanese, said of the new ball. “Whether you throw a fork or a curve or a slider, the break is bigger. Even your fastball doesn’t have to be perfectly straight; you can make it miss the sweet spot of the bat.”
Iwakuma said pitchers could manipulate the slightly lower height of the red stitches and their slightly wider spread.
Japan’s regular season was extended until this week because of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March and unusually heavy rain. But the ball is believed to be responsible for an abundance of curiosities.
Through Friday’s games, seven pitchers among the 12 clubs had earned run averages below 2.00 while throwing more than 170 innings. By comparison, despite his dominant performance of 24 wins in 29 decisions, Detroit’s Justin Verlander, the major league leader in E.R.A. among starters at 2.40, would not crack Japan’s top 10.
Among those Japanese pitchers is Yu Darvish, 25, who many believe will be made available to American teams this winter by the Nippon Ham Fighters. But Darvish’s 1.44 E.R.A. was only second best in the Pacific League. As a testament to his acumen, though, he had a 1.78 E.R.A. last season.
In another oddity, Darvish’s team tied a Japanese record with five consecutive shutout victories during a stretch in May. That was part of nine shutouts in 11 games by the Fighters’ staff, three of them complete-game shutouts by Darvish.
Robust pitching has turned the batting races into rather pedestrian competitions. Worry abounds that the race in at least one league could produce the lowest average for a batting champion in Japanese history. The Hiroshima Carp’s Katsuya Morinaga holds that distinction, capturing the Central League’s 1962 title with a .307 average. This season’s race has come down to the Yomiuri Giants’ Hisayoshi Chono (.315) and Hanshin’s Matt Murton (.312), with three others teetering around .300. Last year, 14 players in the league hit .300 or better, with .358 taking the title. In the Pacific League, five players were hitting over .300, with the leader at .339.
Most noticeable of all, home runs were down. With three players totaling 40 or more homers last year, the overall title was claimed with 49. This season, only the Seibu Lions’ Takeya Nakamura and the Yakult Swallows’ Wladimir Balentien will finish with more than 30.
Although Japan’s new ball is not meant to replicate the American major league ball, a conscious effort was made to make it much more similar than before. That is a crucial point in Japan, where performance in international competitions like the quadrennial World Baseball Classic, which uses the American ball, weighs on the national conscience. Kato, the commissioner, said as much at a news conference when he unveiled the new ball before the season.
“Certainly, an impetus for the uniform ball was seeing with my own eyes the difficulties Japanese pitchers had with the different ball at the W.B.C.,” he said of the 2009 tournament, which Japan won. “By unifying our approach to the domestic game, we can lessen such discomforts that arise for our players on the international stage.”
That could pave the way for Mizuno to bid on the contract to supply the American major leagues. The leagues’ contract with Rawlings, which replaced Spalding after a century as the sole ball supplier, expires in 2013.
At the preseason news conference, Kato was seemingly focused on something larger than his own league when he proclaimed Japan’s new ball to be “of a higher quality than the one used in the American major leagues.”
2011年10月20日 星期四
重視學術研究
Dr. Deming 相當重視學術研究.....
別給學術研究估價
New ways with old numbers
作者：英國《金融時報》專欄作家蒂姆•哈福德
Academics are always being asked to demonstrate the “impact” of their research. (Is it like being hit by a rogue cyclist? Or is it more like a pile-driver, or even an asteroid strike?) But while it is not unreasonable to ask whether a particular piece of academic research is useful, the difficulties in answering the question are extraordinary.
學者總是被要求證明其研究的“影響”。 （是像被一輛不規矩的自行車撞了一下？還是更像一台打樁機、甚至是一次小行星撞擊？）儘管詢問某項學術研究是否有用並非不合情理，但要回答這一問題，難度非常大。
The quality of a piece of research is subjective, and using measures such as the number of peer-reviewed articles published simply outsources the subjective judgment to somebody else. But there is a deeper problem: in a complex world, it is impossible for anyone to judge what the significance of a research breakthrough might eventually be.
一項研究的質量高低是主觀的，用發表的同行評審文章數量等標準作為衡量尺度，不過是把主觀判斷“外包”給了別人。但有一個更深層次的問題：在一個複雜的世界裡，任何人都不可能判斷出一項研究突破的最終意義。
Nowhere is this more true than in the field of mathematics. The most famous example is the development of imaginary numbers. The very name conveys the supposed uselessness of the concept. Square the imaginary unit, i, and you get minus one. Baffling.
在數學界，這一點最為明顯。最著名的例子便是虛數理論的發展。虛數這個名字本身就傳遞出了人們認為這一概念無用的態度。虛數單位i的平方等於-1。這真是令人費解。
Imaginary numbers were regarded with great scepticism after they were developed in Bologna in the 16th century as the logical solution to an abstract problem. Eventually, however, they turned out to be essential for, among other applications, electrical engineering – hardly something that could have been imagined by their creators.
虛數於16世紀誕生在意大利的博洛尼亞，試圖用邏輯解決一個抽象問題。自誕生之日起，人們對它一直持有強烈的懷疑態度。然而，最終，它被證明對於電子工程至關重要（還有其它應用），而這是虛數的發明者們很難想像得到的。
So are imaginary numbers typical of the unexpected bounties of pure mathematics – or an unrepresentative poster child? Two recent commentators have tried to expand the number of examples. Professor Caroline Series of the University of Warwick devoted a recent presidential lecture at the British Science Festival to this topic, focusing on the applications of non-Euclidian geometry.
那麼，虛數在理論數學的意外收穫中到底有沒有代表性呢？最近，兩位評論人士試圖增加樣本數量。華威大學(University of Warwick)的卡羅琳•希爾麗絲(Caroline Series)教授最近在英國科學節(British Science Festival)上的校長演講就關注於這一主題，主要討論了非歐幾里得幾何學的應用。
When Euclid originally laid down the axioms of his geometric system 23 centuries ago, one of them seemed less than obvious. For 2,000 years mathematicians tried to derive the “fifth postulate” – equivalent to the claim that the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees – from more basic building blocks, and failed. Eventually it transpired that the axiom was optional. Consistent systems of geometry were possible in which the internal angles of triangles summed to more than 180 degrees, or even to fewer.
2300年前，當歐幾里得(Euclidian)最初提出構成他幾何體系的那些公理時，其中一個公理似乎一點也不顯眼。 2000年來，數學家們試圖用更基礎的公設推導出“第五公設”(fifth postulate)——其內容相當於一個三角形的內角之和等於180度——但都沒有成功。最終，事實表明，這一公理並非放之四海皆準。有可能存在一些一致的幾何體系，其中三角形的內角之和可能超過180度，甚至可能小於180度。
Surfaces on which the sum of angles in a triangle is less than 180 degrees look like leaves of kale. Prof Series points out that the development of kale-like geometric systems, called hyperbolic geometry, initially seemed a curiosity but made possible Einstein's theory of special relativity. Now, says Prof Series, hyperbolic geometry promises to advance our understanding of the way complex networks such as the internet behave and grow.
三角形內角之和小於180度的面，看上去就像是甘藍的葉子。希爾麗絲教授指出，甘藍狀幾何體系——即“雙曲幾何”——的提出，最初純粹就是奇言怪論，但卻讓愛因斯坦(Einstein)的狹義相對論得以成立。希爾麗絲教授表示，如今，雙曲幾何將有望提升我們對互聯網等複雜網絡表現和增長方式的理解。
Peter Rowlett, a maths educator and historian, recently gathered further examples together in the journal Nature. The “sphere packing problem” – beginning with the conjecture that grocers have found the most efficient way to stack oranges – has been an open area of research for four centuries, but in the 1970s a solution for eight-dimensional “spheres” was used to design efficient modems. This meant that internet access no longer required specialised cables.
數學教育家、歷史學家彼得•羅萊特(Peter Rowlett)最近在《自然》(Nature)雜誌上收集了更多的例子。 400年來，“球體填充問題”一直是一個懸而未決的研究領域。該問題源自於一種猜想，即水果店老闆發現瞭如何最有效地擺放橙子的方法，但在上世紀70年代，用於解決八維“空間”的一種方法被用於設計高效調製解調器。這意味著，互聯網接入不再需要專門電纜。
Quaternions, which extend imaginary numbers into a further dimension, began to be developed by William Hamilton in Dublin in 1843. They were eclipsed by matrix algebra, before being rediscovered as indispensable for generating 3D computer graphics efficiently. Rowlett's contributors offered several other examples.
1843年，威廉•漢密爾頓(William Hamilton)在都柏林發明了四元數，將虛數擴展到四維空間。這一理論在很長一段時間內都因矩陣代數的存在而不受重視，直到被重新發現，成為高效製作3D電腦圖像不可或缺的理論。羅萊特的投稿人還提供了其它幾個例子。
Cost-benefit analysis has its place. But the benefits of academic research can pop up in such unexpected ways, sometimes immediately and sometimes after centuries. We should not set too much store by any bureaucrat's analysis of “academic impact”.
成本效益分析自有其道理。但學術研究的好處可能會以極其意外的方式突然出現，有時是馬上出現，有時則是在幾個世紀之後。我們不應過於看重某個官員對“學術影響”的分析。
Tim Harford's latest book is 'Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure' (Little, Brown)
本文作者的新書《適者生存：為何失敗是成功之母》(Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure)由利特爾-布朗公司(Little, Brown)出版
譯者/梁艷裳
別給學術研究估價
New ways with old numbers
作者：英國《金融時報》專欄作家蒂姆•哈福德
Academics are always being asked to demonstrate the “impact” of their research. (Is it like being hit by a rogue cyclist? Or is it more like a pile-driver, or even an asteroid strike?) But while it is not unreasonable to ask whether a particular piece of academic research is useful, the difficulties in answering the question are extraordinary.
學者總是被要求證明其研究的“影響”。 （是像被一輛不規矩的自行車撞了一下？還是更像一台打樁機、甚至是一次小行星撞擊？）儘管詢問某項學術研究是否有用並非不合情理，但要回答這一問題，難度非常大。
The quality of a piece of research is subjective, and using measures such as the number of peer-reviewed articles published simply outsources the subjective judgment to somebody else. But there is a deeper problem: in a complex world, it is impossible for anyone to judge what the significance of a research breakthrough might eventually be.
一項研究的質量高低是主觀的，用發表的同行評審文章數量等標準作為衡量尺度，不過是把主觀判斷“外包”給了別人。但有一個更深層次的問題：在一個複雜的世界裡，任何人都不可能判斷出一項研究突破的最終意義。
Nowhere is this more true than in the field of mathematics. The most famous example is the development of imaginary numbers. The very name conveys the supposed uselessness of the concept. Square the imaginary unit, i, and you get minus one. Baffling.
在數學界，這一點最為明顯。最著名的例子便是虛數理論的發展。虛數這個名字本身就傳遞出了人們認為這一概念無用的態度。虛數單位i的平方等於-1。這真是令人費解。
Imaginary numbers were regarded with great scepticism after they were developed in Bologna in the 16th century as the logical solution to an abstract problem. Eventually, however, they turned out to be essential for, among other applications, electrical engineering – hardly something that could have been imagined by their creators.
虛數於16世紀誕生在意大利的博洛尼亞，試圖用邏輯解決一個抽象問題。自誕生之日起，人們對它一直持有強烈的懷疑態度。然而，最終，它被證明對於電子工程至關重要（還有其它應用），而這是虛數的發明者們很難想像得到的。
So are imaginary numbers typical of the unexpected bounties of pure mathematics – or an unrepresentative poster child? Two recent commentators have tried to expand the number of examples. Professor Caroline Series of the University of Warwick devoted a recent presidential lecture at the British Science Festival to this topic, focusing on the applications of non-Euclidian geometry.
那麼，虛數在理論數學的意外收穫中到底有沒有代表性呢？最近，兩位評論人士試圖增加樣本數量。華威大學(University of Warwick)的卡羅琳•希爾麗絲(Caroline Series)教授最近在英國科學節(British Science Festival)上的校長演講就關注於這一主題，主要討論了非歐幾里得幾何學的應用。
When Euclid originally laid down the axioms of his geometric system 23 centuries ago, one of them seemed less than obvious. For 2,000 years mathematicians tried to derive the “fifth postulate” – equivalent to the claim that the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees – from more basic building blocks, and failed. Eventually it transpired that the axiom was optional. Consistent systems of geometry were possible in which the internal angles of triangles summed to more than 180 degrees, or even to fewer.
2300年前，當歐幾里得(Euclidian)最初提出構成他幾何體系的那些公理時，其中一個公理似乎一點也不顯眼。 2000年來，數學家們試圖用更基礎的公設推導出“第五公設”(fifth postulate)——其內容相當於一個三角形的內角之和等於180度——但都沒有成功。最終，事實表明，這一公理並非放之四海皆準。有可能存在一些一致的幾何體系，其中三角形的內角之和可能超過180度，甚至可能小於180度。
Surfaces on which the sum of angles in a triangle is less than 180 degrees look like leaves of kale. Prof Series points out that the development of kale-like geometric systems, called hyperbolic geometry, initially seemed a curiosity but made possible Einstein's theory of special relativity. Now, says Prof Series, hyperbolic geometry promises to advance our understanding of the way complex networks such as the internet behave and grow.
三角形內角之和小於180度的面，看上去就像是甘藍的葉子。希爾麗絲教授指出，甘藍狀幾何體系——即“雙曲幾何”——的提出，最初純粹就是奇言怪論，但卻讓愛因斯坦(Einstein)的狹義相對論得以成立。希爾麗絲教授表示，如今，雙曲幾何將有望提升我們對互聯網等複雜網絡表現和增長方式的理解。
Peter Rowlett, a maths educator and historian, recently gathered further examples together in the journal Nature. The “sphere packing problem” – beginning with the conjecture that grocers have found the most efficient way to stack oranges – has been an open area of research for four centuries, but in the 1970s a solution for eight-dimensional “spheres” was used to design efficient modems. This meant that internet access no longer required specialised cables.
數學教育家、歷史學家彼得•羅萊特(Peter Rowlett)最近在《自然》(Nature)雜誌上收集了更多的例子。 400年來，“球體填充問題”一直是一個懸而未決的研究領域。該問題源自於一種猜想，即水果店老闆發現瞭如何最有效地擺放橙子的方法，但在上世紀70年代，用於解決八維“空間”的一種方法被用於設計高效調製解調器。這意味著，互聯網接入不再需要專門電纜。
Quaternions, which extend imaginary numbers into a further dimension, began to be developed by William Hamilton in Dublin in 1843. They were eclipsed by matrix algebra, before being rediscovered as indispensable for generating 3D computer graphics efficiently. Rowlett's contributors offered several other examples.
1843年，威廉•漢密爾頓(William Hamilton)在都柏林發明了四元數，將虛數擴展到四維空間。這一理論在很長一段時間內都因矩陣代數的存在而不受重視，直到被重新發現，成為高效製作3D電腦圖像不可或缺的理論。羅萊特的投稿人還提供了其它幾個例子。
Cost-benefit analysis has its place. But the benefits of academic research can pop up in such unexpected ways, sometimes immediately and sometimes after centuries. We should not set too much store by any bureaucrat's analysis of “academic impact”.
成本效益分析自有其道理。但學術研究的好處可能會以極其意外的方式突然出現，有時是馬上出現，有時則是在幾個世紀之後。我們不應過於看重某個官員對“學術影響”的分析。
Tim Harford's latest book is 'Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure' (Little, Brown)
本文作者的新書《適者生存：為何失敗是成功之母》(Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure)由利特爾-布朗公司(Little, Brown)出版
譯者/梁艷裳
2011年10月19日 星期三
2011The Deming Application Prize: 恭賀欣興電子等等
2011 the Deming Prize Winners Announced
The Deming Prize Committee has determined and is pleased to announce this year's winners as follows. The Deming Prize Award Ceremony will take place at KEIDANREN KAIKAN on November 9, 2011 from 17:30 to 18:00, followed by the celebration party from 18:00 to 19:00.
Prior to the award ceremony, the Winners Presentation by this year's award winning organizations will be held from 13:00 to 16:45 at the same venue.
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Rane TRW Steering Systems Limited, Steering Gear Division, (India) |
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| 2. The Deming Prize for Individuals | | |
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| 3. The Deming Application Prize | | |
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Sanden Vikas (India) Limited, (India) |
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| http://www.unimicron.com/qa01.htm 群策群力，追求永續 2010年對於欣興是忙碌又成果豐碩的一年，我們致力於組織、資源整合，並且持續改善，提升產品品質和生產技術，在全體員工努力及客戶支持下，營業額達新台幣650億，為歷年來的新高，獲利也不錯，甚感欣慰。 我們為未來許下更挑戰的承諾—「成為世界領導公司」。經過多次討論及腦力激盪，彙集了經營階層智慧及團隊的共識，2011~2013的中期計劃如下：
全體員工皆以此為方針管理的準則，更宣示2011年爭取日本戴明獎，以國際級專業單位嚴謹的標準，健全公司根基，督促成長。 我們體認到21世紀企業責任，不再局限於企業個體的經營與獲利，2010年10月正式成立「企業社會責任管理委員會」，結合供應商的力量，提出對客戶、員工、投資人、環境與社群七大承諾，並將公司各項管理指標透明化。 喜聞鐘聲催奮進，更借東風展新姿，欣興銳意革新、精彩的演出已經揭幕，期盼各界的支持與鼓勵，衷心祝福各位身體健康、萬事如意、闔家幸福。董事長：曾子章 | |
| 4. The Nikkei QC Literature Prize (available in Japanese only) | |
2011年度日本品質管理賞・デミング賞本賞，実施賞，日経品質管理文献賞 受賞者一覧
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| デミング賞委員会は、2011年度の「日本品質管理賞」「デミング賞各賞」「日経品質管理文献賞」を次の通り決定いたしました。 授賞式は11月9日(水)17:30～18:00に、同受賞記念祝賀会は同日18:00～19:00に、東京・大手町の経団連会館で開催予定です。 また、同日に、授賞式に先立ちまして、受賞者による受賞報告講演会を13:00～16:45に開催予定です。 11月9日(水)の行事詳細につきましては、こちらをご参照ください。 | ||
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Rane TRW Steering Systems Limited, Steering Gear Division (インド) | ||
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| 3.デミング賞実施賞 | | |
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Sanden Vikas （India） Limited(インド) | ||
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| 4.日経品質管理文献賞 | | |
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