A Simulation Metamodel for Response-Time Planning*

Field service management continues to be a major challenge for many service organizations as companies are required to provide more service with less resources. Especially in information intense environments, short response times for service calls are essential to avoid disruptions to a business office or production facility. Managers must regularly assess their manpower needs, and ensure that their allocation and operational decisions lead to the best service at the lowest cost. Xerox Corporation provides copiers, duplicators, and printing systems to an international market. Xerox operates a service network consisting of over 30,000 trained service personnel, each allocated to service regions by the service planning staff. Response-time planning involves many challenging problems: requirements planning at the national level, allocation planning at the district level, and operational planning at the team level. Customer service is critical and is commonly measured by response time—the time that elapses from when a service call is placed to when a service engineer begins service. This paper discusses how Xerox Corporation has used simulation models and metamodels to improve response-time planning and field service operations.     

Community engagement in the Aboriginal Families Study: Strategies to promote participation

Background

Aboriginal women and families are under-represented in Australian research on pregnancy and childbirth. The Aboriginal Families Study aimed to investigate the views and experiences of a representative sample of women giving birth to an Aboriginal baby in South Australia between July 2011 and June 2013, using methods designed to respect Aboriginal culture and communities.

Utilizing job resources: Qualitative evidence of the roles of job control and social support in problem solving

Abstract

In resource-based models of job design, job resources, such as control and social support, are thought to help workers to solve problems. Few studies have examined this assumption. We analyzed 80 qualitative diary entries (N=29) and interviews (N=37) concerned with the in-role requirements of medical technology designers in the UK for problem solving. Four themes linked to using the resources of job control and social support for problem solving emerged. These were: (1) eliciting social support to solve problems; (2) exercising job control to solve problems; (3) co-dependence between eliciting social support and exercising job control to solve problems; and (4) using job resources to regulate affect. The results were largely supportive of the assumptions underpinning resource-based models of job design. They also indicated that the explanatory power of resource-based models of job design may be enhanced by considering interdependencies between various factors: how different job resources are used, workers' motivation to use resources, workers' knowledge of how to use resources and the use of resources from across organizational boundaries. The study provides qualitative support for the assumption that social support and job control are used to cope with demands.     

ETHNIC DIVERSITY, SEGREGATION, AND INEQUALITY: A Structural Model of Ethnic Prejudice in Bosnia and Croatia

Widespread ethnic prejudice is an incomplete explanation for the development of war in the former Yugoslavia. However, high levels of prejudice in ethnic enclaves played an important role in increasing ethnic tensions and facilitating the outbreak of war. The purpose of this article is to explain county differences in average levels of ethnic prejudice in Bosnia and Croatia prior to the wars of national separation. We focus on structural characteristics of counties, such as ethnic diversity, economic conditions, and ethnic segregation and inequality, to explain county differences in average levels of prejudice. We also consider the possibility that compositional differences among counties (e.g., differences in average levels of education) explain county differences in ethnic prejudice. We combine survey data and county-level census data collected immediately prior to the wars of national separation and use hierarchical linear modeling techniques to analyze these data. Results suggest that ethnic diversity and ethnic occupational segregation decrease ethnic prejudice while ethnic economic inequality increases ethnic prejudice. Thus, structural characteristics account for some of the county differences in average levels of prejudice. County compositional differences, however, explain a majority of the county variation in ethnic prejudice. These results provide important clues to the origins of pockets of intense ethnic prejudice within diverse societies.     

Genetic algorithms and scatter search: unsuspected potentials

We provide a tutorial survey of connections between genetic algorithms and scatter search that have useful implications for developing new methods for optimization problems. The links between these approaches are rooted in principles underlying mathematical relaxations, which became inherited and extended by scatter search. Hybrid methods incorporating elements of genetic algorithms and scatter search are beginning to be explored in the literature, and we demonstrate that the opportunity exists to develop more advanced procedures that make fuller use of scatter search strategies and their recent extensions.     

Examining DSM-IV Criteria for Pathological Gambling: Psychometric Properties and Evidence from Cognitive Biases

We examined the DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling as assessed with the DSM-IV-based Diagnostic Interview for Gambling Severity (DIGS; Winters, Specker, & Stinchfield, 2002). We first analyzed the psychometric properties of the DIGS, and then assessed the extent to which performance on two judgment and decision-making tasks, the Georgia Gambling Task (Goodie, 2003) and the Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), related to higher reports of gambling pathology. In a sample of frequent gamblers, we found strong psychometric support for the DSM-IV conception of pathological gambling as measured by the DIGS, predictive relationships between DIGS scores and all cognitive performance measures, and significant differences in performance measures between individuals with and without pathological gambling. Analyses using suggested revisions to the pathological gambling threshold (Stinchfield, 2003) revealed that individuals meeting four of the DSM-IV criteria aligned significantly more with pathological gamblers than with non-pathological gamblers, supporting the suggested change in the cutoff score from five to four symptoms. Discussion focuses on the validity of the DSM-IV criteria as assessed by the DIGS and the role of cognitive biases in pathological gambling.     

The social antecedents of anger proneness in young adulthood

Anger has been shown to be an important factor in occupational maladjustment, family conflict, physical and sexual assault, criminal behavior and substance abuse. It has also been linked with such adverse health outcomes as hypertension, heart disease, and cancer. Focusing on anger proneness, conceptualized as a relatively enduring propensity to experience and express anger; this article examines both early and recent antecedent factors that predict and may condition levels of anger proneness. The roles of both prospectively and retrospectively assessed factors are considered. Data from an ethnically diverse and representative sample of young adults reveals clear gender differences and, at least for short-tempered anger; decreasing levels of anger with increasing socioeconomic status. Prior exposure to violent events, prior exposure to other forms of social stress, and certain personal attributes were found to be significant antecedents of both hostility and short-tempered forms of anger proneness.     

Individual and Group Shifts to Extreme: Laboratory Experiment on Crowd Polarization

Abstract

Hypotheses that crowds shift to more militant action as a result of both individual shifts and changes in composition are tested through small groups experimentation. Subjects are asked to choose the most militant action they would take in hypothetical crowd situations and then reach group consensus. After tentative consensus, participants are instructed to leave the group if they do not agree; other subjects who were observers are permitted to join the group to continue discussion. The hypotheses that final consensus would be more militant than the first, which would be more militant than individual choices were supported.