The Grand Challenges:

Allow each access to knowledge and information
· To be or not to be reachable anytime, anywhere
· To have instant access to all information
· To be present or absence anytime, anywhere
Provide ready access to improved health
· Reliable, cost effective medical diagnostics and prostheses
· Design/manufacturing for sustainable planet
Simplify the transactions of daily life
· The paperless office
· The cashless society
Allow mankind to live in dignity and comfort
· Intelligent highways and transportation systems
· Abundant, clean, safe, affordable energy
New, high value added products and industries
Source: George Gilder, Telecommunications policy Roundtable, Forbes ASAP, 5th December, 1994, page.162

How blog changing our attitude towards reading?

Paul Kedrosky writes that the bloggers liked best were people who spent most of their time doing some other things than blog. They find a few minutes for blogging here and there between doing other things, and still find time to get stuff out there on a daily basis, but they don't spend most of their time blogging.
Few a generation ago, the world is better able to read and more knowledgeable. There are top 35 nations which have 99 percent or better literacy. In advanced nations, computers and the Internet are changing the way people reading and knowledge sharing process. It can make now clear that the younger generation prefer the internet to the printed media for reading general news and express their view to the world. Search engines and hyperlinks, those underlined words or phrases that when clicked take us to a new Web page, have turned the online literary tour into a kind of U-pick island-hop. We can take an example of Sakuntala’s drama written by Kalidasa in 3rd century which a student of the play can read probably all the way through and then search separate commentaries and analyses in web. The reading experience should be better on online compare to paper. Techniques like PARC’s ScentHighlights highlights whole sections of text it determines we should pay special attention to, as well as other words or phrases that it predicts we will be interested in are offering the kind of reading that is above and beyond what paper can offer.
Stanford University research group is taking a different approach in hopes of making reading on mobile phones faster and easier. Analysts expect mobile phones to evolve into a multipurpose "third screen," along with televisions and computers displaying both pictures and text. But the small screen size has made reading bulky, as users scroll through tiny screen after screen. To solve that, Buddy Buzz, a project of a small group within the Stanford Persuasive Technology Laboratory, flashes text to the viewer a word at a time. Users who sign up can download news from Reuters and CNET, from several popular Internet bloggers. Users can also feed their own texts into the website and have them sent to their mobile phone, or offer their content to other Buddy Buzz users. Neither ScentHighlights nor Buddy Buzz is commercially available, though a free test version of the latter is available at the Buddy Buzz website.

Indians in the Race of development:

Few days ago, I was surfing in net to search articles. In the mean time, I found a very interesting topic about Indians who are really very competitive in world’s development process. Thomas Friedman writes in the context of western European nations rejecting the EU constitution – This is a bad time for France and friends to lose their appetite for hard work - just when India, China and Poland are rediscovering theirs.
The key secret is that India is taking work from Europe or America not simply because of low wages because Indians are ready to work harder and can do anything from answering your phone to designing your next airplane or car. They are not racing with Western developed country to the bottom however they are racing to the top. In fact, there is a huge famine breaking out all over India today, an incredible hunger which is not for food however it is a hunger for opportunity that has been unexpressed like volcanic lava under four decades of socialism, and it's now just started to bursting out with India's young generation. Few of my article like Bhrat Varsha’s civilization in which I have tried to include the different phases of ancient development in India. The Editor of The Indian Express Shekhar Gupta has expressed his view in his paper that India is the oldest civilization, the largest democracy and the youngest population - almost 70 percent is below age 35 and almost 50 percent is 25 and under. A grass-roots movement is now spreading in India who are demanding that English should be taught in state schools, where 85 percent of children go- beginning in first grade, not fourth grade. Even the poor have been to the cities enough to know that English is now the key to a technology sector job, and they want their kids to have access of those opportunities.The Indian state of West Bengal has the oldest elected Communist government left in the world today. The Communist government declared Information Technology work an "essential service," making it illegal for those workers to strike. This is not about wages at all - the whole wage differential thing is going to reduce very quickly. It is about people who have been starving "finally seeing the ability to realize their dreams.

Do We Know about Money:

Sometime in my mind one question always strikes that Why are so many people unable to get out of their financial problems despite a ruthless struggle to make money throughout their lives? This question has been mystifying people across the globe, not only me. If you ask an average Nepalese person, he/she might reply that there are few earning opportunities in Nepal. I agree in that answer however this is a not a genuine answer only. The genuine answers of Nepal’s economic activities are at low which is going out i.e. the atmosphere is not favourable for business, Job opportunities are not being created and skilled manpower is being brain-drained every day to overseas and other countries, to say nothing of the dilemma of uneducated and unskilled.
Muglan is a popular Nepali everyday word that is often used to refer to any foreign destination where people go to earn money. The term “mass muglanization” has been used here to describe the mass departure of Nepalese youth to other countries in search of better earnings. It seems as if the queue of youngsters aspiring to go abroad is endless. Certainly, this situation has arisen out of rising financial desperation among people. The government is delighted that a sum nearly equal to the country’s annual budget is coming in, both officially and unofficially, as inward allowance every year. But I wonder if the government is worried about the fate of our young generation, which has a direct bearing on the destiny of this country. However, I believe that a good earning opportunity or a high paying job alone will not rescue a person out of financial distress. What people need is financial literacy and basic knowledge about money, which our education system fails to convey to our children. To earn a good income and to be financially safe and secure are two completely different things. Even if you earn a handsome salary, you can still continue to remain financially helpless or desperate. Financial education is the difference between making money and retaining money.
Pointless to say, the sole objective of many of those who are leaving the country to overseas today is to earn money. Only a few of the diaspora have been in hunt of higher studies or careers; many of them too would not spare any chance to convert themselves into permanent non-resident Nepalese (NRNs) – a lot hardly of any help for the nation as has been observed so far. Most of the people who has gone to other countries or overseas for employment are destined to end up as labourers in factories, construction sites, slaughter houses, gas stations, restaurants, convenience stores and so on. After working as unskilled labourer for some years, they come back home with the money earned but few skills or creativity. The best they can do with this money is to clear off their prior obligations/debts, to incur some social expenditure and to create new liabilities by acquiring a house, vehicle, etc. for personal use. Brainwashed and obsessed by years of unskilled labour, overtime duty and drawing weekly wages, they are neither left with any idea or skill for entrepreneurship nor with any knowledge about proper utilisation of their hard earned money. The government is a simple witness: it fails to address the root of the problem and to create opportunities for both careers and money back home. Neither has it got any clear/plain plans before it to have such allowance fund utilised for creative or development activities.

Adapted from Dev Raj Adhikari

Feeling:

One of my friend was telling me his feeling which really touched my heart and mind. I like psychology so I just wrote it down his feeling in this blog as a rough for future refereces purpose: Perhaps Nobody can understand my feeling, even I used to share my feeling to one of the friend. Every one around me who knows me believe that I am really short tempered (thats what they feel). Even if I do, Nobody understands the reason of my temper or try to go further behind it. I think who have that much time to think about me? Just take an example, I become anger nobody ever understands why I am angry, the reason or cause behind it or to whom I am angry with? The main problem with me that I believe, I shouldn’t hurt any person by saying or with my behaviour that they hurted me, however I can’t hide my feelings so involuntarily, I start staying aloof from that person and show indifference towards the person. Its become just a trait of my behaviour and character. I think hardly any of my friends ever understands or feel it. At times I just feel like screaming at that person to vent out my anger however I wish could do to him/her. Honestly, I can’t see any solution to this problem because its hurting me and the other person as well. In the mean time, I just scare that I might loose some good friends because of this attitude of mine.

Today, I am really missing someone but why should she care about me? She just used to tell me that she likes me alot and She miss me every moment. I think she just used to tell me to make me happy, may be i couldn't understand her or she couldn't unedrstand me? Everythings are going to be end in mystry. Our nearly one year friendship (I will say more that friend that I had felt to her) gone with in just one wind blow. My feeling was stable like one clean pond's water but somebody threw a stone where a long of waves started coming. I start feeling that my mind is not stable, I don't know why? May, I lost something which I can't get in my life. Why did she made me to feel like that?Does she feel how I am feeling?of couse not.I was just a person whom she tried to play with my feeling. I wish her bright future.

let's discuss about money:

Normally, People behave hypocritically when it comes to money. They pretend that money is the main cause of all evil, however they act differently. Education is being accepted as essential worldwide. However it is quite surprising that there is no such education about money to everybody which is the main instrument for financial well-being of the humanity.
All of us should admit that money is a must in our life. There is one proverb in Nepali “If you have money then everybody is yours, if you don’t have money then you don’t have even your own”. If we continue hypocritical about it and treat it as an outlawed fruit or sour grapes, we will remain slaves until change our concept to it. However, if we try to understand about it and develop knowledge/awareness about handling it properly, we can become masters of it.

Bharat Varsha's civilisation:

India has been in actuality for something around 3000 years. The Bharat Varsha concept has been in trend for more than 3000 years. Many people would difference of opinion this aside saying that I am quoting myth but I would like to claim that it is our education which denominates the way we look at facts and figures presented to us. We are all products of the Western system of education which perforce had to civilise our thinking from the "barbaric" ways of our ancestors’ way of understanding Bharat Varsha and its contributions to mankind.When we study civilisations and their rise and fall. There will be one thing significantly comes to light which is the cycle of growth and fall is similar to the law of diminishing returns. When a civilisation is in the establishing mode then the need to create newer standards is a epochal. This accelerates the creative spirit of the surrounding environment and the passionate desire to contribute to the growth drives this creative spirit. However once certain exceptional standards are achieved which one may look back upon as catalytic to the growth of the society. The collective psyche tends to stagnate and basking in the glory of its achievements.Let’s take an example of a company X which was in the process of getting established for a great product they invented. During the early few odd years the energy in the company would be electric and transferable. The people populating the environment would be driven by a sense of achievement. When it is firmly established and the growth is accelerating, demand goes high, the creativity tends to retard as there is a lack of urgency to meet expectations. People tend to relax in the light of their achievements and rely more on the past examples. This would plateau the growth after a couple of years and eventually lead to prospective downfall of the enterprise. Unless there is an urgent need to innovate so as to survive. This again leads to creativity and newer ideas.In other words, if X axis is Time (in months) and Y axis is Creativity the resulting curve would be shaped as an Inverted Bell (Bell curve) in which the Initial Curve (IC) is more gradual and therefore more in time. The Plateau (TP) stretching for about one third of the earlier time and then finally the Down Curve (DC) lasting for about almost the same time of the up curve with the initial slope much steeper gradually narrowed off which would be repeated again and again if certain survival stimuli are given on the down-coming curve. This could be termed as rebirth of the creativity drive.The brilliant positive aspect of these curves is that if the resurrection occurs the base line now begins higher due to the previous repository of knowledge. We have compressed time when we consider small entities like companies for whom the lifespan generally is of 20 to 30 years on an average. When we consider life cycle of civilisations / Nations, the time model is in units of 100 to 200 of years. These entities follow the similar bell curves as did the company X discussed above. Now let’s consider the specific example given in the question India.Period in question is 1500 BC to 2000 AD.

IC:

The history of our beloved nation has been that of extreme innovation and creativity in the earlier 2500 odd years. Just imagine the Mahabharata and Ramayana had descriptions of almost modern settings. We had flying objects (Pushpaka Biman); we had weapons which caused destruction similar to that of atom bombs (Brahma Astra etc). We had great governance and administration as is evident from the both stories. We had great innovations in music, arts and sciences e.g. Astronomy, Astrology, Numerals, Communication, town planning and musical creativity as is evident from the metres used in the Mahabharata and Ramayana. We had creativity at its essence which resulted in the structure of Grammar by Panini unparalled till date, Medical sciences sprouted volumes on the human diseases and ailments as propounded by Charaka, Sushruta and in the Ayurveda. We had the human body studied thoroughly and exercises detailing the minutest as in Ashtanga Yoga by Patanjali etc. The list could go on and on and on. This is the IC part of the Bell.

T P:

The period from the 200 BC to about 800 AD has been an era also termed as the Golden Era of our civilisation. This was the time wherein the flower of the creativity expressed in the IC part blossomed. You had magnificent temples built, luxury palaces built and expression of art at its epitome. Examples of these are, Khajuraho, Somnath, Badrinath, Kamrup, Madurai temples, great cities built like Pataliputra, education centres like Nalanda, Taxila; wonderful poets like Kalidasa, Bhartrihari; astronomers and mathematicians like Aryabhatta, Bhaskara etc. This era did not add substantially to stimulating creativity but started making the thought process rigid and structured leaving very less room for creativity.

D C:

Whenever we say it is the Golden Period of a nation. It is the first sign of the DC to come. It has been rightly said that huge and impressive monuments and extremely involved complex structures indication the downfall of a civilisation. The period from about 800 AD (more or less) to 1950 AD was a period of total rigidity and contracted thinking. They have been examples which defied the above (like those expressed in monumental structures as in Mughal Period, in Rajasthan and in the Vijaynagar period) but more or less except for such examples of very less time about 100 odd years. The decline in thought and expression of the Indian Psyche was very vivid. We lacked unity and we fought incessantly without much progress on any front. This also resulted in migration from one ideology to another and resulted in further rigidity.1950 AD onwards: We have come to a period of creative upheaval. The process of breaking the chains of the DC era are slowly breaking and this has resulted in the mass movement of creative leaders migrating to the West which fostered their latent potential. This “brain drain " has resulted in many Indians making a name for themselves abroad and this in turn has slowly propelled the common man to unshackle him/herself and realise his latent potential . The move the nation is making towards making this reality are not pre-mediated but necessary for survival and thus is starting a movement which would mean the start of another IC with the base line shifted further up.Many would argue to various remarkable instances of creativity in the DC period. I would like to add that within these periods too you will find some minor corrections (as in the Sensex curve) but the general trend has been that of a DC. The IC has surely started now and thus this is a time of increasing creativity necessitated by survival.Curiously it is also the time of IC in the Chinese civilisation next-door. In all, I would say that India will now produce quantum inventions as these would be necessary for the future survival of this civilisation.

Let's discuss about Nepal:

Probably, I can’t help drawing parallels between Nepal and Europe however it is my miniature attempt to analyse about this issue. Historically we had (we continue to have) as much diversity as in Europe. The rise of Europe to an extent can be attributed to the voyagers who set out to discover new lands like south Asia (Especially India) for spices, gold and diamonds in particular. This to an extent was instrumental to all the quantum innovations that happened there (to think of all the technology that was invented in the wars that ensued). In Second World War, Germany had invented so many advanced war technology machines. Was it needed of people that led them to do this or was it greed? Probably it could be combination of both. Why did this not happen in Nepal? Was it lack of need or was it lack of greed? Probably, it could be a combination of both. Let’s switch time frames and get back to reality. Why are so many young Nepalese are keen to discover new lands of opportunities (call them modern day voyagers if you like)? Is it needed that is leading them to do this or is it greed? Probably, it could be a combination of both. Now will this bring quantum innovations to Nepal? This does depend on a lot of factors. Are the modern day voyagers returning with their catch (material & intellectual resources)? How intense is the competition between Nepal to equip these modern day voyagers? Are they creating the infrastructure and innovation environment where the new Nepal can create quantum innovations? We see this happening to an extent in the IT area for example, India reverse brain drain & competition between different states in IT.We still have a huge rural heartland which is not part of this equation. This is where the government has to focus. Educate people and make them aware of the possibilities. Create infrastructure where the rural population can take part in (probably reverse brain drain of people from the cities to the villages?).In prospect of Nepal development process, we need to move away from a prescriptive approach to one of partnership and joint problem solving between students, researchers, employees and employers. It is important to educate and involve researchers and workers, recognise, their expertise while at the same time shaping their expectations. We must think in terms of active interaction between people and their work position rather than seeing employees as people who are ‘reacting’ to a situation they find themselves in.

Attitude towards Entrepreneurship in Nepal

# Significant occupational shift was noticed in a generation from farming to non-farming. It was faster in urban areas than in rural areas.
# Awareness about entrepreneurship is high (44% of the sample was found aware).
# 80% of respondents were prepared to take risks by taking bank loan and they were confident of being able to repay it back in a year.
# 73% of the respondents said they regarded the traditional caste based division of labour as an obstacle to development, thus indicating that they were open to modernization.
#· Only about a quarter of the respondents said they had ever heard of business promotion policies of the government.
# 25% of the respondents were found highly enterprising (when tested using TV Rao’s locus of control Entrepreneurship Orientation Inventory).
# Rural respondents more enterprising (1% higher) than urban respondents
# Women more potentially enterprising (31%) than men (23%)
# People from high social standing and educated lot were found preferring fixed income jobs while the less educated were more inclined to self-employment.

Source: Attitude towards Entrepreneurship in Nepal, SBPP, 1994

Entrepreneurship and religion:

Nepali conflict assumes all the more significance and importance because of the strategic location of Nepal as it is between two Asian giants- India and China, with two different traditions, cultures and even politics.Dor Bahadur Bista, one of the well known sociologists in Nepal has stated his view in his book "Fatalism and Development" about the development process of Nepal. He has stressed his view in religion which is the main barrier of entpreneurship development in Nepal. Strong religious belief of the Nepalese that the fortune of a person is determined by his/her performance in the previous life is generally offered as one of the factors blocking entpreneurship development in Nepal. His logic and research book is widely popular in Nepal which is highly used as first reference book by every development worker who comes to Nepal under a donor assisted project.
In 1994 research study had been done by SBPP which has proved Bista's hypothesis wrong. About 60% of the respondents in the survey did not believe in fatalism. On the contrary, the study has confirmed that the country-frog syndrome (a phenomenon of everybody pulling everybody else down and not allowing him/her progress, also called "leg pulling" tendency or in Nepali Khutta Tanne Prabritti) is one of the major hurdles in the entrepreneurial development. According to the report, this indicated to the lack of unity in the society. And this seems to be an area where the state interventions for reforms would be very much helpful. The hypothesis that Hinduism & Buddhism is less encouraging to entrepreneurship is proven wrong by examples also from elsewhere, such as India, Fiji, the East Africa and Malaysia where the occupation of Hindus has been business and entrepreneurship. In these sectors they are quite success.
In my view, Lack of genuineness and honesty with oneself or with others seems to be a characteristic common not only to intellectual person but to many leaders, government worker and to many other people. It is difficult to understand because everybody can not know what other people think they are hiding from others when they not only do not treat them reasonably and decently but think they are successfully pretending they are. There is no such successful simulation; only the additional proposition that one is as hypocritical and dense as one is incompetent or unkind.

Developent in Nepal:

The main regrettable thing for development in Nepal is being landlocked between two superpower country like India and China. Nepal is situated between India and China which three parts east, south and west is India; and north is China (Tibet). The ongoing moist war, corruption, political instability and security situation is another frequently reasons for stunting the most of development in Nepal. Business development may actually have stunted because of this situation as the market has shrunk and sometimes the link to the raw material sources may be cut off. However, some of the researchers and analysts also argue that such situations which cause substantial displacement of people can create the good breeding ground for business development in future. We can take such an example to exemplify this is available from Nepal itself. Still in Tibet, most of the Tibetans people were more engaged in spiritual pursuits, some studies (such as by Laurie Zivetz) have concluded that displacement is one of the major reasons that some Tibetan refugees in Nepal have established themselves as successful business in Nepal. This indicates to the prospects for emerging business and development out of the Maoists victims as well as from the Bhutanese refugees. The more delayed is the return of Bhutanese refugees, the higher is the likelihood of their adjustment into the Nepali society. It may be recalled that many of those who had returned from Burma in the past had started business enterprises and some of the major business houses of today have their origin in those Burma returns.

Performance................

There have been done many studies in human factors and their behaviours in the past. In the early time on 1920s, Henry Ford was influenced by the work of Fredrick Taylor to improve the efficiency of the line workers. Fredrick Taylor had stated his view that ‘Hardly a worker can be found who does not devote his time to studying just how slowly he can work’. This statement made Henry Ford to devote his time to speed up the workers. He stated his view that ‘In simple repetitive tasks like automobile, there was to be no need for skilled labour. Men could learn to do any job quickly, as each job was broken into smaller operations, done by many different men at many different machines.
Since 1927 to 1932, Roethlisberger and Dickson researched on work situations that affect the morale and productive efficiency of shop-workers. They unexpectedly observed that people’s performance reflects the way they are measured. This study is known as the Hawthorne Effect nowadays.
In the mid of 1930, Kurt Lewin developed a dynamic theory of personality. This was based on empirical observation to predict psychological behaviour in which researcher has to consider the whole situation: the momentary structure and the state of the person and the psychological environment. This observation leads to a new way of thinking. Lewin established that the behaviour of the people could be described in terms of the person and environment. This definition can be expressed as follows:
B = f (P, E)
where, B stands for behaviour, E stands for Environment and P stands for the Psychological profile of a person.
In 1930s, Tolman and Lewin formulated the general “expectancy-theory” model of human motivations that provides one way to analysing and predicting which courses of action an individual will follow when he has the opportunity to make personal choices about his/her behaviour. The motivational “force” to engage in behaviour is a multiplicative function of (1) the expectancies the person holds about what outcomes are likely to result from that behaviour and (2) the valence of these outcomes. Recently it has been usefully applied to behaviour in organisational setting (Vroom, 1964; Porter & Lawler, 1968) which can be expressed in symbols as follows:
MF = E x V
where, MF stands for motivational force, E stands for expectancy and V stands for valence.
There has been done other research about people at work which includes of behavioural research and applied psychology. Bonnes and Secchiaroli analysed the literate in environment psychology in which they found that physical factors such a light, noise and temperature can affect performance of an individual. Some of the recent studies also include factors such as air quality and colours.
Lewinian research helps to conceptualise the relationship between people, their environment and their behaviour. The main focus of previous work has been on understanding the interactions between physical, social and economic environment and behaviour.

When designing the human–machine interface, there is a need for system designers, developers, and programmers with knowledge of the production system, operators, work tasks, human limitations, information needs, etc. The dynamic features also require new ways of working, increased confidence on information technology, as well as user-centred support during various work tasks in different development and production phases. Therefore it is needed a closer collaboration, e.g. flexible co-operation and continuous information flow between engineers, operators, development and production departments, suppliers, etc, (Scherer, 1998). As a result, handling of disturbances is no longer the responsibility of the shop floor operators only however it is a complex and combination of problems which involve management, design, maintenance, and operator functions in a company.

Theory

Theory is a set of interrelated variables, definitions and propositions that presents a systematic view of phenomena by specifying relationships among variables with the purpose of explaining natural phenomena (Hussey and Hussey, 1997). It is a combination of principles, a model and initial assumptions. It is often meet as an adversary in scientific work. A theoretical model, is an imagined mechanism or process, postulated by analogy with familiar mechanisms or processes and used to construct a theory to correlate a set of observations. It is the source of the analogy ‘the familiar system’ where ‘familiar’ means better understood rather than everyday. The model drawn from the familiar system suggests a theory. It also suggests possible relationships between some of the terms of the theory and some observation terms; these correlations linking theory and observation are called ‘rules of correspondence’. A theoretical model is used to generate a theory to explain the behaviour of an observable system. A theory, believed to be correct, may after a long time, be falsified or improved. A theory can only describe a natural phenomenon which does not necessarily follow from experimental observations (Benson, 1991) however it may have different kinds of origin.

Laws of Robotics:

Issac Asimov’s famous three laws of Robotics are first clearly stated in his 1942 story Run Around which was coded in some of his earlier work. Asimov later felt that his initial 3 laws were insufficient to protect society at large. Therefore he created a prequel, ‘Zeroth’ law in his 1985 book Robots and Empire to which the other laws are subordinate that has been stated as following:
First law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
Third law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with first and second law.
Zeroth: A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

Human Factors

Human factors are criteria of good design include the effectiveness of work and the efficiency of a product. The human factors can greatly influence how individual, groups and organisations function. The processes and methods are the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’. How something is done is at least as important to the outcome as what is done and the individual, groups and organisations function have important contributions of this kind. It plays a key role in determining the effectiveness with which an organisation uses technology and its ability to develop or adopt new technology in its products and processes. Some organisations have recognised human factors and are building on the strong base of academic and research work. It’s academic and research base lies in anatomy, physiology, experimental psychology and cognitive sciences.

Human factors do not represent an integrated or logical body of knowledge, however rather an area of interaction between a number of disciplinary perspectives. In USA ‘human factors’ is equivalent to ergonomics, however in Europe it has come to mean that part of ergonomics particularly concerned with human system interaction. Ergonomics, in the rules of the Ergonomics Society (1949) is defined as the study of the relation between people and their occupation, equipment and environment, particularly the application of anatomical, physiological and psychological knowledge to the problems arising therefrom.

There are several methods used in the process of human factors such as the current forms of computer based simulation like Schematic representations (e.g. IDEF0), Mathematical modelling (e.g. Queuing Theory), Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and System Dynamics (SD) to assure engineers as much about the system as they require to know. In other hand, the Health and Safety, ergonomics and sociotechnical literature, occupational psychology, social psychology, industrial psychology and some parts of economics are widely used to get detail information about the environment, human factors and behaviour.

Human factors are important as this is where most manufacturing accidents occur. Further, improving this portion of the human behaviour will be necessary for future manufacturing systems that will employ new technology. A combination of methods should be employed towards fully and properly understanding this system. We should not rely on one strategy (e.g., simulation, ergonomics, sociology, physiology, psychology and so on). We should also consider new methods for system analysis that provide a more comprehensive understanding of the system. Indeed, a multidisciplinary approach can generate new and fresh ideas for research. Taking a multidisciplinary approach is a motivation behind one of the contributions of this dissertation. That is, developing a methodology for work system analysis that treats the system and cognitive components as equally important and applicable to manufacturing system.

There has several factors been taken in account of human’s character and behaviour, and maintaining strong link between the knowledge base and practice, by promoting better procedures for coordinated function, and by the methods of spreading (esp. ideas) widely and best practice of those already experienced in organisation. In ACOST (1993) booklet it has been mentioned about the strategic objectives which have been taken account for in human factors and organisation design are:

• Extensive acknowledgment of the reality that people, technology and organisations from strongly interacting systems;
• Acknowledgment by senior management of the importance of human factors and organisational design to the performance of their organisation;
• Systematic application of existing knowledge in this field with organisations and making it an accepted part of procedure;
• Improved access and spread (esp. ideas) widely the knowledge of the researchers and practitioners;

Human behaviour:

This century has witnessed that the human performance in manufacturing system design in a way that was never imagined, even a few decades ago. Our civilization has migrated from a purely industrial society to global business age in which the movement of bits is as important to the economy as the manufacturing of goods.
The history of industry related development contains many interesting and useful pieces of information. It is also relevant at the present date when it comes to manufacturing system development and improvement. In the prospect of today’s development process, Most of the manufacturing organisations invest their money on computer based simulation to improve their manufacturing performance however the performance evaluation based on combination of human judgement, bargaining and analysis. Despite of all the developments in the different sectors such as social sciences and Information technology with in the company, it is still ill-equipped to understand the effects of the relationships between the people, environment and performance within the company.
People behave differently in differently situations. The main challenge on today’s organisation is to enhance human behaviour by taking account of human factors.

Emotion & Personality

Emotion & Personality effect the utility of alternative decisions in relationship:

One of the most important functions of emotions is to regulate our behaviour in social situations. The Ortony, Clore, and Collins (OCC) model uses four parameters involving how agents feel about one another, again dependent upon the type of emotion being generated. For each pair of agents (X, Y), the following are defined by the model:
1) The degree to which X likes Y;
2) The degree to which X dislikes Y;
3) The degree to which X has formed a cognitive unit with Y;
4) The degree to which X is familiar with Y.
Two additional parameters were added for implementation purposes, to be used in determining the intensities of standards-based and preference-based emotions, respectively:
1) The degree to which X views Y as an agent;
2) The degree to which X views Y as an object.