Integrating Decision-Making Support in Geocollaboration Tools

Collaborative spatial decision making (CSDM) involves multiple stakeholders making strategic decisions based on spatial data. Current CSDM tools have been exploring different ways to integrate spatial data with collaboration, distribution and mobility. Notably, decision-making support has not seen the same level of attention. This paper discusses the challenges raised by the integration of decision-making models in CSDM tools. We review a large collection of decision-making models using three different views: sequential, dynamic and continuous. From this review we derive a conceptual model and a set of functional requirements necessary to integrate decision-making support in CSDM tools. The conceptual model highlights the importance of several functions in decision-making processes: representing problems, finding alternatives and making choices (sequential view); classification and communication (dynamic view); and perception, comprehension and projection (continuous view). The paper also describes a prototype developed to validate the model. The paper provides two main research contributions: a unified view of decision-making support and an innovative CSDM tool blending spatial data with decision-making support.     

Black political power and the decline of black land ownership

Conclusion The absence of a viable equity base has been costly to the black community both economically and politically. Black dependency on white economic support has served to rob the black community of its autonomous decision-making potential. Further, without the advantage of a steady income and personal property in which they can take pride, many povertystricken Blacks have been unable to develop a serious interest in political activity. At the same time, black organizational efforts—both political and economic—have been crippled by the lack of a sufficient equity base to keep them independently viable.     

Monetary policy for an open economy: an alternative framework with optimizing agents and sticky prices

The 'new open-economy macroeconomics' seeks to provide an improvedbias for monetary and exchange-rate policy through the constructionof open-economy models that feature rational expectations, optimizingagents, and slowly adjusting prices of goods. This paper promotesan alternative approach for constructing such models by treatingimports not as finished consumer goods but rather as raw-materialinputs to the home economy's productive process. This treatmentleads to a clean and simple theoretical structure that has someempirical attractions as well. A particular small-economy modelis calibrated and its properties exhibited, primarily by meansof impulse response functions. The preferred variant is shownto feature a pattern of correlations between exchange-rate changesand inflation that is more realistic than provided by a morestandard specification. Important recent events are interpretedin light of the alternative models.     

Role of Gender in Conflict Handling in the Context of Outsourcing Service Marketing

Do male and female outsourcing service marketers differ in their responses to conflict‐handling styles of outsourcers? The paper addresses this question by identifying relationship‐oriented typologies of conflict handling from extant literature and examining their effects on key relational outcomes in outsourcing relationship in A sia. Specifically, the paper considers how outsourcers’ conflict‐handling styles impact trust and commitment by male and female outsourcing service providers’ ( OSP s). Data were collected from male and female OSP s and analyzed using F actor and H ierarchical M ultiple R egression analyses. Findings show significant differences in the relationship between conflict‐handling styles and relational outcomes between male and female OSP s. Precisely, integrating conflict handling–trust relationship is significantly stronger for males than for females, whereas compromising conflict handling–trust relationship is significantly stronger for females than for males. Findings show no statistical differences in accommodating conflict handling–trust relationship between the groups. These findings lead to research and managerial implications that conclude the paper.     

Thirty years of research on tourism and hospitality management in China: A review and analysis of journal publications

The tourism industry in China has undergone rapid development since 1978 and is foreseen as being the world's largest tourism market by 2020. However, no comprehensive review of literature in this context has been completed, and international academics have little understanding of China tourism research. This paper aims to provide an overview of 119 articles selected from six leading English language academic journals published from 1978 to 2008. Content analysis points to the evolving trend in Asian universities in terms of journal contributions. Consumer behavior has gained popularity as a research topic, and will likely remain as a prevalent research theme in the near future. A tendency toward multiple-authorship, rather than single authorship, and more sophisticated methodological procedures has also been found. Future analysis may focus on including other forms of publications and Chinese language journals to capture the full picture of China tourism.     

Improved approximations for the aggregate claims distribution of a life insurance portfolio

Abstract

In an earlier paper the author derived a recursion formula which permits the exact computation of the aggregrate claims distribution in the individual life model. This exact procedure requires of course more computing time than approximative methods such as Kornya's algorithm, which seemed to be the best compromise between accuracy and computational effort. In the present paper it is shown that, to save time, the exact formula can be used in an approximative way and that the corresponding error bound is smaller than the one of the Kornya-type approximations.     

Simple binomial processes as diffusion approximations in financial models

A binomial approximation to a diffusion is defined as 'computationallysimple' if the number of nodes grows at most linearly in thenumber of time intervals. It is shown how to construct computationallysimple binomial processes that converge weakly to commonly employeddiffusions in financial models. The convergence of the sequenceof bond and European option prices from these processes to thecorresponding values in the diffusion limit is also demonstrated.Numerical examples from the constant elasticity of variancestock price and the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985) discountbond price are provided.