Recruiting,engaging, and educating social work leaders: an innovative curricular model

Graduate social work student interest in administration or management studies has been low in comparison to their interest in clinical practice. Recruiting graduate students to administration or management specializations in social work education remains a challenge for social work programs. Recognizing the need to attract and prepare MSW students for administration, various curriculum models have been proposed. This study presents a unique model that was designed specifically for social work students who wanted to become competent clinical practitioners, yet were also interested in macropractice. By marketing to, and recruiting, graduate students who have a passion for the dual (macro and micro) focus of social work, the administration specialization in this large, US-based urban graduate social work program has been able to attract over 120 additional students each year, comprising nearly 24% of the graduating class. This qualitative study examined students’ rationale for selecting this specialization, their experiences in the program and their suggestions for improvement. Implications for other graduate social work programs are highlighted.     

Inference on unknown parameters of a Burr distribution under hybrid censoring

Based on hybrid censored data, the problem of making statistical inference on parameters of a two parameter Burr Type XII distribution is taken up. The maximum likelihood estimates are developed for the unknown parameters using the EM algorithm. Fisher information matrix is obtained by applying missing value principle and is further utilized for constructing the approximate confidence intervals. Some Bayes estimates and the corresponding highest posterior density intervals of the unknown parameters are also obtained. Lindley’s approximation method and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique have been applied to evaluate these Bayes estimates. Further, MCMC samples are utilized to construct the highest posterior density intervals as well. A numerical comparison is made between proposed estimates in terms of their mean square error values and comments are given. Finally, two data sets are analyzed using proposed methods.     

An Analysis of Fertility Differentials by Religion in Kerala State: A Test of the Interaction Hypothesis

In a revelation of overall decline to below replacement fertility in the Kerala state of India, it was generally found that fertility among Muslims is higher and contraceptive prevalence lower than among Hindus and Christians. This paper examines the interaction between religion and other socioeconomic factors, that is, whether the effect of religion on fertility remains constant across other factors. The analysis is based on the data from the National Family Health Survey-1 in Kerala. The analysis found that large Hindu-Muslim fertility differences at a low level of education do not persist at higher levels. For contraceptive use, wider gaps are found at a middle level of education and at a medium level of standard of living than at lower and higher levels. This indicates that couples at different socioeconomic settings make different decisions in spite of belonging to the same religion. The fact that fertility of Muslims at higher levels of socioeconomic status is low, and not much different than the fertility of other religions, suggests that the observed fertility gap between Hindus/Christians and Muslims is a passing phenomenon.     

Estimation of parameter of Morgenstern type bivariate exponential distribution using concomitants of order statistics

In this paper we have considered concomitants of order statistics arising from Morgenstern type bivariate exponential distribution and their applications in estimating the unknown parameter involved in the distribution. We have obtained the best linear unbiased estimator of a parameter involved in Morgenstern type bivariate exponential distribution using both complete and censored samples.     

A Framework for Examining the Interface between Operations and Information Systems: Implications for Research in the New Millennium*

Even though much research has been published in operations and information systems, both functional areas find their roots in other disciplines. While operations management evolved from operations research in the 1960s, the field of information systems is of more recent vintage and traces its original roots to computer science. Both disciplines now naturally have come closer together as information and process-technology-based changes force manufacturing firms to become more efficient and customer focused. Market and technology-driven e-commerce initiatives that are likely to dominate business strategies in the future cannot be successfully achieved without a successful integration of operations and information systems. In this paper, we present a unifying framework that can be used to better understand the management of the functional interface between operations and information systems. We also categorize and highlight the contributions of the articles that appear in this special research focus issue. Finally, research directions that emerge from our understanding of this interface are outlined in an effort to stimulate further thinking and research that can advance our knowledge of this interface area.     

Food subsidy,income transfer and the poor: A comparative analysis of the public distribution system in India's states

The Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) – the largest food subsidy program in India – has been a dismal failure in targeting the poor. The present paper examines its performance in three Indian states – Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, based on primary data collected for this study. As real income transfers through food price subsidies are a tiny fraction of expenditure per person under this scheme, a contribution of the present study is to model determinants of real income transfers through subsidised wheat, rice and sugar. The analysis throws new light on how income transfers vary with economic status of a household, inequality in the distribution of land in a village, amount of food price subsidy, transaction costs of buying from ‘fair price shops’ (FPS), and supply shortages. The policy implications of these results are profound. Desperate measures such as a universal food subsidy enshrined in a proposed National Food Security Act are rejected on the grounds that the enormous leakages and wastage under the present TPDS would only get worse. Assertions that a universal food subsidy is the only option consistent with the right to food are rejected as mistaken. Instead, it is worthwhile to overhaul the PDS within the existing outlay.     

An Evaluation of Capacity Sensitive Order Review and Release Procedures in Job Shops

We investigate the performance of capacity-sensitive order review and release (ORR) procedures in job shop environments that have not been previously explored. Previous research has ignored the case of job shops which must perform to very tight due-dates because of time-sensitive customers. We propose and test a new capacity sensitive ORR procedure called path based bottleneck (PBB) in such environments, along with the modified infinite loading (MIL) procedure which has been shown to work well in several studies. We compare the performance of these two controlled release rules with that of immediate release rule under different conditions of capacity utilization and customer specified exogenous duedates. Our results indicate that PBB performs well in lowering total costs when due-dates are tight, while MIL is a better procedure with relatively loose to medium due-dates. We also show that in many cases, the shortest processing time (SPT) dispatching rule is a superior performer than a due-date based rule like critical ratio (CR); a conclusion which is contrary to the existing research in this area. In addition, the shop floor control policies recommended are shown to be sensitive to the cost structure of the firm. The managerial implications of this research in providing effective shop floor control in job shops operating under tight due-date conditions are also discussed.     

The Impact of Learning and Labor Attrition on Worker Flexibility in Dual Resource Constrained Job Shops

This study investigates the impact of worker learning, worker flexibility, and labor attrition on the system performance of a dual resource constrained (DRC) job-shop. The effects of learning and labor attrition have not been previously addressed in DRC literature. Results from the study, consistent with previous literature, show that the greatest benefits are achieved when inter-departmental worker flexibility is incrementally introduced into the system. In addition, the learning environment, which depends on the initial processing time of jobs and the learning rates of workers, is shown to impact the acquisition of flexibility. The study also shows that the impact of labor attrition on system performance under certain shop conditions may be significant.     

Estimation of a Parameter of Bivariate Pareto Distribution by Ranked Set Sampling

Ranked set sampling is applicable whenever ranking of a set of sampling units can be done easily by a judgement method or based on the measurement of an auxiliary variable on the units selected. In this work, we derive different estimators of a parameter associated with the distribution of the study variate Y, based on a ranked-set sample obtained by using an auxiliary variable X correlated with Y for ranking the sample units, when (X, Y) follows a bivariate Pareto distribution. Efficiency comparisons among these estimators are also made. Real-life data have been used to illustrate the application of the results obtained.