Acquisition of Telecommunications Bandwidth Under Economies of Scale in Size and Duration of Contracts*

Significant advances in information technology have brought about increased demand for bandwidth. Buyers of bandwidth often encounter bandwidth prices that are decreasing over time. Additionally, bandwidth prices at any point in time are decreasing in total bandwidth purchased and length of contracts. Therefore, buyers face complex decisions in terms of the number of contracts to buy, their bandwidth, and their lengths. In this article, we formulate models for the acquisition of bandwidth from a buyer's perspective. We begin with a model that allows varying contract durations under deterministic demand and without allowing shortages or overlapping contracts. We then formulate a simpler model, which restricts contract lengths over the planning horizon to be equal. We also solve the problem under probabilistic demand and allowing for shortages, which are satisfied by buying additional bandwidth at a premium. We perform numerical sensitivity analysis to compare the results of the models and illustrate the results with numerical examples. The numerical analyses illustrate that using relatively simple equal‐length contracts produces approximately the same results as the more complicated unequal‐length contract strategy.     

Causal Linkages in Supply Chain Management: An Exploratory Study of North American Manufacturing Firms

In this paper we investigate the key causal linkages in supply chain management. We propose a conceptual framework and test this framework on data from 215 North American manufacturing firms using structural equation modeling techniques. Three major research issues are addressed in this study: Do sourcing decisions affect the degree to which firms achieve manufacturing goals of cost, flexibility, dependability, and quality? Does the degree of manufacturing goal achievement lead to higher customer responsiveness? Does the degree of manufacturing goal achievement lead to higher internal manufacturing performance? The study examines the relationship among sourcing decisions, manufacturing goals, customer responsiveness, and manufacturing performance. The results support the notion that an integrated supply chain involves aligning sourcing decisions to achieve manufacturing goals that are set to respond favorably to the needs of customers.     

World Income Distribution and Tax Reform: What Tax Systems Do Low‐Income Countries Need?

This article develops a new method for assessing relative direct tax burdens across all countries, treating the world as a single economic entity and assuming identical preferences across countries. Empirical results show that the new direct tax burden indices are significantly high in low‐income countries in comparison with middle‐ and high‐income countries. This article argues in favour of narrowing the base of income and capital gains tax in low‐income countries and a long‐term convergence of the tax burden levels across countries. Future research into tax reforms in low‐income countries should focus simultaneously on economic growth, quality of life and the natural environment.     

Bayesian age-stratified joinpoint regression model: an application to lung and brain cancer mortality

Joinpoint regression model identifies significant changes in the trends of the incidence, mortality, and survival of a specific disease in a given population. The purpose of the present study is to develop an age-stratified Bayesian joinpoint regression model to describe mortality trend assuming that the observed counts are probabilistically characterized by the Poisson distribution. The proposed model is based on Bayesian model selection criteria with the smallest number of joinpoints that are sufficient to explain the Annual Percentage Change. The prior probability distributions are chosen in such a way that they are automatically derived from the model index contained in the model space. The proposed model and methodology estimates the age-adjusted mortality rates in different epidemiological studies to compare the trends by accounting the confounding effects of age. In developing the subject methods, we use the cancer mortality counts of adult lung and bronchus cancer, and brain and other Central Nervous System cancer patients obtained from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results data base of the National Cancer Institute.     

Crafting Child‐friendly Cities: Evidence from Biratnagar Sub‐metropolitan City,Eastern Nepal

Our cities are increasingly becoming the sites where children socialize, observe, and learn how society functions and many local and global activities have impacted children's health and well‐being. The Child‐friendly Cities initiative, launched by the United Nations Children's Fund and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in 1996, draws in diverse stakeholders to place children at the center of the urban agenda. Based on social work research, this article analyzes the acclaimed status of Biratnagar Sub‐metropolitan city, Eastern Nepal, as a child‐friendly city. Despite its efforts, the city of Biratnagar is yet to meet the required criteria to claim itself as a child‐friendly city. Further improvements by the city administration in achieving children's participation in decision‐making, child‐friendly legal environment, and code of conduct are essential. Based on the evidence, the authors advocate for bottom‐up approaches that include children's voices and their real participation in city governance and a strong political will to craft child‐friendly cities, not as a policy rhetoric but for real. Enabling children to fulfill their potential as equal participants in crafting child‐friendly cities will require adults to relinquish some of their hegemonic powers of decision‐making on behalf of children.     

Children as Witnesses: Understanding Their Capacities,Needs, and Experiences

Historically the law regarded children as inherently unreliable and made it difficult for them to testify. Since 1975 awareness of child abuse has increased and research has established that children can be reliable witnesses. Governments began to recognize the needs and capacities of children and enacted legal reforms to facilitate prosecutions for child abuse. This paper reports on a survey of victim witness workers and other justice system professionals which reveals some of the continuedfailings of that system in dealing with children. Althoughrelatively rare, there are cases of false allegations of abuse, usually a result of investigations by poorly trained professionals. Further legal reforms and better human supports are required to ensure that the needs of children are met and their capacities as witnesses are fully appreciated.     

Competitive Capabilities among Manufacturing Plants in Developing,Emerging, and Industrialized Countries: A Comparative Analysis

Competitive capabilities have been defined as a plant's actual performance relative to its competitors, with the most commonly investigated capabilities being quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost. However, most research in this realm has investigated capabilities within developed countries, and neglected the context of developing and emerging nations, which are increasingly becoming viable economic entities in global supply chains in their own right. The present study fills this gap and carries out a comparative analysis of competitive capabilities among plants in developing, emerging, and industrialized countries. Basing our arguments on the resource‐based view of the firm, we suggest that the influence of competitive capabilities on each other varies among plants in differentially industrialized regions. Specifically, we suggest that, on average, competitive capabilities tend to influence each other to a greater degree in plants in emerging and developing countries compared to industrialized countries. Along similar lines, we suggest that the influence of the four competitive capabilities on performance improvement is manifested more strongly among plants in emerging and developing countries than among plants in industrialized nations. We investigate these contentions with data from 1,211 plants in 21 countries. The results are particularly important for decision makers as they decide on the increasingly global location of their manufacturing operations or the configuration of their global supply chains.     

Regional-sub-cultural explanations of black fertility in the United States

Summary This paper re-examines the relevance of the hypothesis concerning the Southern sub-culture and black fertility in the United States. According to zero-order correlation analysis, Southern-born blacks show higher fertility than those born in other regions. But a dummy-variable regression technique applied to the data from the 1970 public-use sample indicates that the Southern origin - independent of other factors-is not different from other regions. Southern birth has the effect of increasing black fertility, but much less so than birth in the North Central region. Southern blacks show higher fertility because of their lower socio-economic background. It is concluded that geographical regions in the United States have little or no cultural meaning in explaining reproductive behaviour.     

Public opinion and the dimensions of the welfare state

Empirical studies over the last ten years indicate that the public in general still supports the welfare state but not necessarily its beneficiaries nor the allocations required to sustain its activities. Since most of these studies focused only on selected aspects of the welfare state their data do not provide a widespread and comprehensive overview of public opinion regarding the welfare state and its internal dynamics. This article focuses on public opinion with regard to the major components of the welfare state. The sample is drawn from a large urban population in Israel. For each component of the welfare state, three dimensions are studied: governmental allocation, quality of service and number of beneficiaries. The results indicate that public opinion with regard to the various elements of the welfare state is differential and distinct.     

Appraisals and de/legitimation of classroom well-being: A study based on Chilean students' voices

This study analysed, from a social justice perspective, how students from two Chilean public schools evaluate, legitimise and delegitimise processes and social actors associated with classroom well-being. Using a participatory qualitative design, fifty-nine (59) seventh grade students were asked to take and then select photographs about their school experience, and later participated in semi-structured interviews and a group workshop. Findings regarding the classroom context showed that children legitimised active learning methodologies, teachers to whom they feel close, and the use of technology for learning. They delegitimised punishment and teachers who ignored minority students or those with learning difficulties.