Queueing with reneging

Summary In this paper we consider a queue in which a person, having joined, may decide to leave and give up service if it appears that the time consumed will exceed some maximum which he has available. Specifically, three problems are treated: a) How to make a rational (sequential) decision while waiting in the queue, b) the probable effect of this decision, and c) the behavior of a queue in which all persons are employing such a procedure.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Bericht behandelt eine “Schlange”, in der ein sich dieser “Schlange” angeschlossener Mensch entschlie?t, seinen Platz und die Bedienung aufzugeben wenn es ihm scheint, da? die notwendige Zeit ein ihm zur Verfügung stehendes Maximum überschreiten wird. Insbesondere werden drei Probleme diskutiert: a) Wie man eine rationale (sequentielle) Entscheidung trifft, w?hrend man in einer “Schlange” wartet, b) der wahrscheinliche Effekt einer solchen Entscheidung, c) das Benehmen einer “Schlange”, in dem alle Menschen ein solches Verfahren gebrauchen würden.

     

Putting a Big Chill on a “Big Hurt:” Genuine Interest in Employment of Salts in Assessing Protection Under the National Labor Relations Act

As union membership has continued to decline steadily in the US, union organizers have become more creative and vigilant with their organizing strategies. Chief among these strategies has been “salting,” a process by which unions attempt to organize employees from the inside rather than the outside. The Supreme Court has ruled that, under the National Labor Relations Act, “salts” cannot be discriminated against solely on the basis of their status as salts. This paper examines employer responses to resist salting efforts, including a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board, which redefines the landscape under which salting activities can be conducted and considered protected activity.     

Argumatics: a text analysis procedure for supporting problem formulation

Problem formulation is the most critical phase of the decision making process. This, particularly in the case of high level multi-stakeholder problems, is not trivial, as the problems do not come “neatly packaged”. The procedure presented in this paper aims to support (i) the exploration of the stakeholders' mental constructs, and (ii) the generation, comparison and synthesis of alternative problem formulations. The suggested procedure — while using the decision analytic approach of the traditional text analysis procedures, follows an inverse, bottom-up direction of analysis: first the individual arguments inherent in the text are explored, then taking them as a starting point, the structures behind the arguments are identified.     

Economic institutions and horizontal checks and balances in the Chinese bureaucratic system: evidence at the prefecture-city level

Economics of Governance - In China, “democratic centralism” complicates horizontal and vertical bargaining among politicians. Higher-level cadres need to consider not only...     

Impact of relational norms, supplier development and trust on supplier performance

Supplier relationship management and supplier development initiatives assume a fundamental role in enterprise supply chain management. An important aspect of effective supplier relationship management is the role of trust. This paper seeks to understand whether supplier relationship management or supplier development initiative should be emphasized as a firm strives to achieve superior supplier performance. The analysis and discussion draws upon sourcing strategy literature and is based on empirical survey-data of mid to upper level managers with responsibility for supply management initiatives in their respective organizations in Denmark and in the USA. It examines the interrelationships among “relational norms”, “trust”, “supplier development initiatives” and ensuing “supplier performance”. The data analysis shows that firms must emphasize relation and trust building activities before investing in supplier development initiative. Supplier perception audits must be routinely performed to gauge the level of trust and strength of relational norms.     

基于模糊层次理论的轨道交通装备供应链的敏捷性评价

全球化竞争日益激烈,企业与企业间的竞争已经演变成供应链与供应链之间的竞争,敏捷供应链在这样的环境下,相比精益供应链有更多的竞争优势。本文结合模糊逻辑以及层次分析法,提出一个新的评价供应链敏捷性的方法,通过此方法不仅可以对供应链敏捷性进行评价,还可以通过其结果分析发现敏捷供应链的弱点和急需改善的方向,为供应链的优化和发展提供了理论依据。     

A unified approach to optimal process control

Summary In this paper a unified approach to optimal process control is developed, which leads to relatively simple and rather general objective functions for optimization. These two features “simplicity” and “generality” are the basis for the development of powerful algorithms and nomograms to determine approximately optimal solutions. Research supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.     

Examining Turkey and member states of European Union in terms of health perspectives of millennium development goals

Development is related not only to production and increase in per capita income but also to social, cultural and political improvements. The purpose of development is that individuals would live long, healthy and happy lives thanks to economic development of society. From this perspective, it is obvious that the human factor is fundamental to the concept of development. This study examines the most important element in human development—health. As health indicators, it uses the health perspectives in the United Nations millennium development goals that are “reduce child mortality”, “improve maternal health” and “combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases”. In the study, European Union (EU) member states and candidate country Turkey are compared in terms of health related goals among millennium development goals by using Multidimensional scaling and Cluster analysis. Initially, countries with similar and dissimilar health indicators are mapped in multidimensional space by multidimensional scaling analysis. Further, the same method is used to reveal similar and dissimilar health indicators among countries. Then, the findings are compared using Cluster analysis and are identified to be similar.     

Conjunctural causation in comparative case-oriented research

This article highlights one of the major benefits of qualitative comparative methodology as applied within a “small-N” research design, namely its potential use for specifying the scope conditions of (theoretically competing) causal mechanisms. It is argued that the identification of set-theoretic relationships, multiple paths, and analytic efforts in typological mapping can make valuable contributions to the elaboration and further development of middle-range theory.     

基于AHP的康复路商圈物流发展SWOT分析及对策

针对西安康复路商圈物流服务滞后于批发市场发展的问题,结合AHP和SWOT分析法探讨在商圈建设过程中最合理的物流发展策略。在实地调研的基础上,分析了商圈物流发展所面临的优势、劣势、机会和威胁,建立了总体系统层次分析评价指标体系。进而求解各层次指标的权重,通过SWOT四边形策略选择方法确定了四种备选方案。分析结果建议,在建设康复路商圈的过程中应发挥人流量较大、商业气氛浓的优势,把握先进现代物流服务理念的机会。     

Apply 6-sigma methodology in measuring the competition quality of satisfaction performance—an example of ISP Industry

At present time the ISP (Internet Service Provider) already make a great impact to the human life as well as the economic society, everything has a close relation with the internet service and due to the fast development of information technology further lower the cost of ISP and improved the service speed as well as its quality. All of this make the customer layer of ISP more popular than before and thus bring up the fierce competition in this industry. Due to the entry barrier of high investment and high technology of ISP industry it has become as a monopoly market and the monopoly market is very respect the competition and cooperation relationship with competitors. Besides, most of the relevant literature in the past is focus on the measurement and analysis of customer to the self-company and few of them mention how to include the satisfaction of competitor’s customer into measurement and analysis. As golden strategy stated in the Sun-Tze Strategic: “Know yourself and know your competitor well, winning every war.” we must consider the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat on customer satisfaction of your company and competitors. Base on the above motivation, this article will apply the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) methodology of 6-Sigma, focus on the viewpoint of customer satisfaction of ISP industry. At first we utilize the 5 equal scale measurement define the network quality item of ISP, which provided by the self-company and competitors. And measuring the degree of “satisfaction” and “importance” of these quality items, then use the performance evaluation matrix and strength and weakness matrix to analyze the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat of self and competitors, focus on the quality items that fall out of the 2 sigma and use the strength–weakness strategic chart to establish the improvement strategy. And at last, utilize the strength–weakness matrix chart as the control tool to verify and sustain the effectiveness of the improved performance. The complete and easy measurement improvement model provided in this article can be used by the enterprise to effectively and quickly evaluating and analyzing the service quality of self and competitors. And under the reasonable cost condition with considering the competing opportunity and threat of market to effectively improving the customer service quality and promoting the overall customer satisfaction and create powerful high value-added quality competition strength.     

Determining of threat perceptions affecting direction of the US defense expenditures by using ordinal regression models

The article examines whether the US threat perceptions defined in terms of federal government national defense outlays in billions of constant (FY 2000) dollars change along with periodical changes in international politics between 1945 and 2007. Three different models affecting direction of the US defense expenditures are developed. The first model are estimated by using five link functions even though results of only two of them, complementary log–log and cauchit, are presented. As complementary log–log produced the best results, others models are predicted by using only this function. The parameter estimates of complementary log–log function for the first model indicate that four of these variables (Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush Sr.) out of eleven are significant in the category of presidents. “Truman Docrtrine/Cominform”, “Korean War”, “Vietnam War”, and “Invasion of Iraq” also seem to be the important independent variables on empirical grounds for the first model. While “Party”, “Invasion of Iraq”, “Vietnam War”, “Korean War”, and “Cuban Missile Crisis” constitute the important independent variables on empirical grounds for the second model, “Korean War”, “Vietnam War”, “Invasion of Iraq”, “Truman Docrtrine/Cominform”, “The Cold War and New World Order”, and “Cuban Missile Crisis” are important independent variables on empirical grounds for the third model. Estimations based on these three models therefore suggest that aforementioned independent variables do indeed have effect on the US defense expenditures.     

The queuing system GI/M/I with finite waiting space

Summary Time dependent solution of the queuing system characterized by a general independent input, exponential service time distribution and a finite waiting space, has been first investigated by using the “phase method”. On finding the waiting room full, the customers then arriving may be turned away or the first customer may wait outside and the input process may be stopped till the customer then being served, completes its service. Steady state solutions of both these problems have been obtained and the difference in the operational behaviour of the two systems has been pointed out. For a 2-Erlang arrival distribution, the queuing parameters have been evaluated for different values ofρ _r andN.     

An empirical analysis of cross-security information asymmetry and the “pecking order” hypothesis

This paper suggests that any examination of the “pecking order” hypothesis must consider the possibility that a firm's level of information asymmetry is related to the type of security it issues. The empirical results show that, on average, firms issuing common stock exhibit higher information asymmetry levels (as proxied by financial analysts' earnings forecast errors) than do firms issuing debt. However, after controlling for information asymmetry, abnormal returns to common stock announcements remain significantly less than those of debt issues which supports the existence of a “pecking order” in capital procurement.     

Verbesserung des nicht-randomisierten exakten Testes von R.A. Fisher

Summary The so-called Exact Test of R. A. Fisher for comparing two probabilitiesp ₁ andp ₂ in a Fourfold-Table with small cell frequencies is known as a UMPU-Test. But in practice the test is used in a nonrandomized, often tabulated version. Given a certain level of significanceα it is shown: the critical region of this nonrandomized test, referred to as “Fisher 1”, can be enlarged considerably. For instance for all sample-size-sums up to 20 andα=0.01 the total number of points in the critical regions of “Fisher 1” is 552 whereas the analogous number of the new version “Fisher 2” is 788. The size of tables for “Fisher 2” can be reduced considerably because the main parts of the critical regions can be described by the aid of some Chi-square-test versions. In particular Yates’ continuity-correction turns out to be always conservative in the above mentioned region relative to “Fisher 2” whereas this is not strictly true relative to “Fisher 1”.      

Redistribution and individual characteristics

I study a model where personal income is a function of two different groups of individual characteristics, called “talent” and “effort” respectively. The distinction between these two groups is that society has taken the prior decision that the influence of traits from the first group needs to be moderated by any fair redistribution mechanism while differences in income due to traits from the second group must be preserved. I present two solutions that satisfy several intuitive properties of fairness and I use these properties to characterize both of them. Received: 29 October 1995 / Accepted: 6 January 1997     

The Use of Indices in Surveys

The paper deals with some new indices for ordinal data that arise from sample surveys. Their aim is to measure the degree of concentration to the “positive” or “negative” answers in a given question. The properties of these indices are examined. Moreover, methods for constructing confidence limits for the indices are discussed and their performance is evaluated through an extensive simulation study. Finally, the values of the indices defined and their confidence intervals are calculated for an example with real data. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Global supplier selection using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy goal programming

Global supplier selection is a multi-goal multi-criteria problem which needs to consider both qualitative and quantitative factors. Which suppliers are the best and how much should be purchased from the selected suppliers is an important purchasing issue for manufacturers. Traditionally, decision makers can determine the best supplier from evaluating few suppliers with qualitative supplier selection criteria by using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), but evaluate dozens of global suppliers simultaneously or determine the order quantity from them will be complex and difficult. Meanwhile, decision makers can determine the order quantity form the suitable suppliers by using fuzzy goal programming (FGP); however, it is not easy to decide weights for each goal of global supplier selection with different supply chain strategies. This study integrated the FAHP and FGP (FAHP-FGP) method to be a new approach for global supplier selection in considering the manufacturer’s supply chain strategies. With FAHP-FGP method, the manufacturer can consistently integrate multi-manager’ opinions in determining weights of each goal and obtain the order quantities for suitable suppliers based on manufacturer’s strategies. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method, a real-world case of a digital consumer products manufacturer is presented.     

Leisure activity and coping with stress: adolescents as case study

The purpose of this study is to explore the correlation between adolescent participation in leisure activity, its benefits, and coping with stress. Questionnaire surveys and structural equation model (SEM) were used for testing, and the analytical results showed that the model has good fit. The main findings of this study are: (1) youth participation in leisure activity would positively influence benefits of leisure activity; (2) participation in leisure activity has a significant positive correlation to adolescent coping with stress; (3) benefits of leisure activity has a significant positive influence on coping with stress. Research results showed that among participation in leisure activity, “kinetic activity” is the most important element for adolescent choice; among benefits of leisure activity, “enrich the quality of life” and “enhance self-worth” are most emphasized by adolescents. In terms of coping with stress, adolescents generally use “avoidance coping.” According to the research results, it is suggested that under the current social and cultural framework, promotion of adolescent participation in leisure activity can help them increase avoidance coping when faced with stress.     

Social Distance,Respondent Cooperation and Item Nonresponse in Sex Survey

This paper examines the ways in which the number of item nonresponses is determined by social distance and/or interview rapport, with a focus on responses of “refusal” and “don’t know”, implying the respondent’s lack of willingness and ability to provide substantive responses to sensitive questions. The data analyzed were from 39 self- administered questions concerning sexual attitudes and behaviors in the 2002 Taiwan Social Change Survey for module “Family and Changing Gender Role”. Poisson Regression in 2-level Hierarchical Linear Model was employed to enhance the accuracy of the analysis of the accumulation of “don’t know” and “refusal” responses. The results showed that respondent cooperation significantly decreased the number of both “don’t know” and “refusal” replies. The decrease was not conditioned by any kind of social distance. Age and education distances have respectively negative and positive effect on the number of “don’t know” and “refusal” answers. The married–married interview produced more “don’t know” and “refusal” than other paired interview types. The larger the ethnicity distance is, the more “refusal” appears. The substantial findings imply that the effects of social-distance and rapport (respondent cooperation) on the number of item nonresponses deserve more attention in research on survey methodology. The divergent findings on gender-distance effect and marital-status effect, however, call for replication studies in the future.