Transportation in disaster response operations

Disasters are extraordinary situations that require significant logistical deployment to transport equipment and humanitarian goods in order to help and provide relief to victims. An efficient response helps to reduce the social, economic and environmental impacts. In this paper, we define and formulate a practical transportation problem often encountered by crisis managers in emergency situations. Since optimal solutions to such a formulation may be achieved only for very small-size instances, we developed an efficient genetic algorithm to deal with realistic situations. This algorithm produces near optimal solutions in relatively short computation times and is fast enough to be used interactively in a decision-support system, providing high-quality transportation plans to emergency managers.     

Wir wünschen guten Appetit!

Besser essen im Krankenhaus - Essen kann glücklich machen. Essen kann aber auch belastend sein. Gerade im Krankenhaus verschl?gt es vielen Senioren den Appetit. Es liegt in der Verantwortung der Pflegenden, sich dieses Problems anzunehmen. Doch wie gelingt es, auch unter schwierigen Bedingungen, den Bedürfnissen der Patienten gerecht zu werden?     

Financial Turmoil, Failed Bank Acquisitions, and Bank Business Lending Behavior

This paper utilizes bank Call Report and FDIC receivership data from 1987 to 1991 to examine the impact of a failed bank acquisition on the growth rate of commercial and industrial (C&I) lending at the acquiring institutions. Using a two-stage least squares model with fixed effects, we find that banks acquiring a failed bank's assets experience a significant decline in both the growth rate of C&I lending and their capital asset ratios in the period of the acquisition. The results support anecdotal evidence that failed-bank borrowers may experience difficulties in accessing credit once their bank fails and underscores the importance of bank-borrower relationships in C&I lending. Finally, the paper provides an alternative explanation for banks' stagnant or declining business lending activity during this period of financial turmoil.     

Connectivity in the Commercial Internet

We study the 'backbone market' in the Internet. After discussing the structure of the Internet, we use an extension of the Katz-Shapiro network model to analyze the strategies that would be used by dominant backbone. We show that a larger backbone prefers a lower quality interconnection than the smaller one. We then analyze a 'targeted degradation' strategy where the larger backbone lowers the quality of interconnection to its smaller rivals in turn. Finally, we show that the qualitative results are robust to the possibility of 'multihoming' by clients.     

WHICH AGGLOMERATION EXTERNALITIES MATTER MOST AND WHY?

This paper revisits the ongoing discussion on the importance of agglomeration externalities – specifically specialization, diversity and competition effects – that may contribute to innovation, productivity and urban employment growth. Previous meta‐analyses suggested that the evidence on agglomeration externalities is strongly context‐specific. Expanding an earlier analysis of 31 articles, we seek to draw in this paper more robust conclusions by means of the statistical evidence for agglomeration externalities presented in 73 scientific articles, all building on the seminal work of Glaeser et al. (1992). Our results confirm that the heterogeneity among studies is huge and can only be partially accounted for by means of an ordered probit analysis. Additionally, some evidence of publication bias is found. We conclude that the conventional lines of inquiry in this literature may now have reached strongly diminishing returns. New lines of inquiry, using rich micro‐level data on firms and workers, dynamic general equilibrium models at the macro level, more attention for spatial and temporal variation in the impacts of agglomeration, and further investigations into the spatial scope of externalities are promising avenues for further research that can enhance our understanding of how agglomeration externalities continue to fuel our increasingly urbanized world.     

Reducing perceptions of overqualification and its impact on job satisfaction: the dual roles of interpersonal relationships at work

A sizeable portion of the working population perceives that they are overqualified for their jobs. This is problematic, given that research consistently shows that such beliefs translate into lower levels of job satisfaction. Hence, it behoves human resource management (HRM) scholars to identify factors that influence perceptions of overqualification and also moderators that may reduce the negative effect of perceived overqualification on job satisfaction. In this study, we present a moderated path model that posits that the quality of the relationships that employees hold with their leader and with their team is not only antecedents of perceived overqualification but it is also hypothesised to weaken the negative relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction. Survey data that were gathered from two organisations in the Netherlands (n = 183) supported the model. Implications for theory and practice in HRM are discussed. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

Socioemotional wealth and IPO underpricing of family firms

Socioemotional wealth (SEW), i.e., the noneconomic utility a family derives from its ownership position in a firm, is the primary reference point for family firms. Family firms are willing to sacrifice economic gains in order to preserve their noneconomic utility. Thus, we argue that family firms sacrifice IPO proceeds by choosing higher IPO underpricing than nonfamily firms if underpricing helps them protect their SEW. Our empirical results, based on a sample of 153 German IPOs, support our hypothesis. On average, family firms have 10 percentage points more IPO underpricing than nonfamily firms. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Urban Development Revisited: The Role of Neighborhood Needs and Local Participation in Urban Revitalization

Traditional models of economic development such as economic base and urban revitalization models have been found wanting. Both models rely on expert-based assessments of local development needs. More recent approaches call for a stronger focus on local development needs and resident skills as the basis for designing development strategies. One such neighborhood-based approach to development is presented in this paper. Its initial step was a survey of 444 households representing 1398 residents conducted in the Hamilton Hill and Vale neighborhoods of Schenectady, New York a 'downsized' community of about 65,000 residents in the Capital District of New York State. Survey results show a strong need for recreation, childcare, a grocery store, care for the elderly and home repairs. Residents' self-assessed job skills and interests appear to be well suited to meet these needs. Yet despite these promising results, barriers to neighborhood-based development persist. These barriers reiterate the long history of isolation prevalent in US inner city neighborhoods. Two issues are particularly characteristic of the barriers that continue to keep urban neighborhoods isolated from their larger context. They are: (1) a lack of effective communication between local residents and decision makers; and (2) a lack of valuation systems that properly assess the value of social and environmental context and their contributions to local development.     

Geopolitics after geopolitics: A French experience

What can be the goal for a state that is no more an empire in an environment where empire cannot be a goal anymore? In this paper, it is argued that there is a classic French geopolitical stance which has conserved a large part of its characteristics over centuries and which can be compared to the attitudes of other European states. It is precisely because this long‐lasting, consistent set of ideas and behaviours is coming apart that it is urgent to put it in the perspective of its own historical development. After some general remarks on the particular part played by France on the European geopolitical checkerboard, the fate of the ‘special relationship’ between France and Africa, as a dramatic case study of the widening gap between the traditional imperial stance and newly emerging realities, is considered. The third aspect of this reflection is an analysis of the original characteristics of the European Union in terms of international relations and the impact of this new context on the evolution of the French state.