Cowboys and Indians

This experimental, layered, mixed‐genre narrative folds my biographical experiences into a critical reading of a cultural performance involving cowboys and Indians in a small Montana town in summer 2000. Informed by critical race theory and poststructuralism, this narrative attempts to deconstruct racial stereotypes associated with Native Americans and their presence in America's movies and popular culture.     

A DISCRETE DYNAMIC OPTIMIZATION MODEL FOR MADE-TO-ORDER COST ANALYSIS

A model is presented that yields optimal production rates for a firm producing a contracted order. The model is unique in that it considers the influence of production rate and learning on total program cost. An application to the specific characteristics of two military production programs is presented. As demonstrated by the application, models of this type may be used as decision-making tools when negotiating the cost impact of contract modifications.     

College Students’ Perceptions of Media Portrayals of Divorce

This study takes an exploratory, qualitative approach to examine college students’ perceptions about divorce in the media. Findings suggest that participants perceived both positive and negative representations of divorced families in the media they consume, highlighting the complex nature of navigating and communicating through a divorce. Specifically, college students reported on aspects of the ex-spousal relationship, how children are affected, and the contrast between life pre- and postdivorce. An inductive theme analysis revealed several positive and negative media representations of divorce. Largely, college students perceive media messages about divorce to be accurate portrayals and impactful representations.     

Discourses of service user involvement in meeting places in Norwegian community mental health care: a discourse analysis of staff accounts

In previous research, meeting places have been favourably addressed by service users, but they have also been contested as exclusionary. In this participatory explorative study, we sought to perform a contextual analysis of meeting places in Norway based on a discourse analysis of three focus group discussions with 15 staff members. We asked the following question: how do meeting-place employees discuss their concrete and abstract encounters with service users and their experiences? We focused on service user involvement, which was largely analysed as neoliberal consultation and responsibilisation. Service users were positioned as resisting responsibility trickling down and defending staffed meeting places. Social democratic discourse was identified in the gaps of neoliberal discourse, which is noteworthy given that Norway is a social democracy. This relates to global concerns about displacements of democracy. We suggest that meeting places appear to hold the potential for staff and service users to collaborate more democratically.     

DEGENERACY AND THE (MIS)INTERPRETATION OF SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS IN LINEAR PROGRAMMING

Under conditions of degeneracy, sensitivity analysis information such as cost and right-hand-side ranges, which are produced by standard linear programming procedures used in commercial codes, can be misleading. From a managerial perspective, the interpretation of such information can be erroneous. In this paper we present these problems, explain their occurence with elementary examples, and discuss procedures for their resolution.     

Interactive Effects of Major Response Facilitators

Practitioners and researchers have long been interested in achieving the highest response rate within resource constraints on their mailed surveys. Achieving this high response rate typically has required the selection of the right mix of response-facilitating techniques. The selection decisions were generally made under the assumption that the response-facilitating techniques act independently of one another. The authors have examined the validity of this independence assumption by identifying the major response facilitators in use and then analyzing the results of 531 independent mail survey studies. The authors conclude that major facilitators do not function independently. In fact, it was found that significant joint action interactive effects on response rates do exist. Practitioners and researchers who are faced with the survey design decisions of choosing response facilitators can receive assistance by reviewing the results of this diverse collection of reported experiences.