Covariates of length of stay in residential treatment

This study explores variables associated with length of stay in a child welfare residential treatment center. The study followed three entry cohorts (416 boys) from admission through discharge. The researchers conducted event history analyses to examine the rates of discharge over time and the covariates of length of stay. They conducted analyses by discharge destination (reunified, transferred, or ran away). The results demonstrated that mental health issues slowed down rates of discharge for youth who were reunified or transferred. For children who left by running away, age and prior substance history were associated with faster rates of exit. These results have important public policy implications for improving the application of length of stay variables in planning and treatment.     

Quality circle failures in UK manufacturing companies—A study

This paper presents the results of a study of quality circle failures in UK manufacturing companies. A questionnaire survey formed the first part of the investigation, which reveals that the majority of companies which implement quality circles should expect to encounter some form of failure. The first three years of operating a quality circle programme represent the critical period for establishing long-term survival of the programme, whilst in the case of individual circles it is the first 18 months. The results indicate that white collar circles are more difficult to sustain over time than are circles in blue collar areas. The main reasons for circle failure include: rejection of the concept by top management and trade unions; the company restructuring, redundancies and labour turnover; circle leaders lacking time to organise meetings and a lack of co-operation from middle and first-line management. It is pointed out, that despite an average circle failure rate of 20%, there is a high level of satisfaction with quality circles amongst the respondents.     

Inheritances and Bequest Planning: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, this paper documented the positive correlation between the receipt of an inheritance and the expectation of leaving a bequest. Inheritance recipients were found to have a higher probability of planning to leave a bequest relative to households that had not received an inheritance. Conditional on having already received an inheritance, the likelihood of expecting to leave a bequest was even larger for households that anticipated to receive an inheritance in the future. The findings in this paper suggest that inheritances already received or expected to be received may be an important transmission mechanism underlying the bequest motive.     

A dependent multiple failure mode modelling procedure

Under mild distributional assumptions,Langberg,Proshane,and Quinzi demonstrated the changing of a dependent competing failure mode system into an independent one.In this paper, their procedure is ultiized to construct dependent failure mode models.The common reliablity models, Exponential,Weibull and Extreme value, are examined with this procedure and an example is discussed.     

A Report From the Battlefront

This study provides quantitative evidence of the professional impact of the Bayesian viewpoint as measured by the percentage of pages devoted to Bayesian topics in econometrics textbooks and leading econometrics and statistics journals.     

Simple policies in the economic lot scheduling problem with zero setup costs

The economic lot scheduling problem is analysed for the case when the cost of setups, but not their duration, is assumed to be zero. This would be the case when setups are performed by the machine operators, or when management's goal is holding-cost reduction. Theoretical results are presented describing when the common cycle solution of producing one lot of every item every cycle is optimal or near optimal. Computational results using simulated data are then presented which show that the common cycle solution is nearly optimal in a wide range of practical situations.     

Positivism and ‘Functional Theory’ in the Thought of Karl Polanyi, 1907–1922

Karl Polanyi is the author of a modern social science classic, The Great Transformation, as well as a number of well‐known and widely debated essays collected in Trade and Market in the Early Empires and Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies. These texts were researched and written either during his second exile in 1930s Britain or in wartime or post‐war North America. Not so well known, however, are his Hungarian writings from the 1910s. Until recently, very few of these had been republished or translated, although this is in the process of being rectified [ Gareth Dale (forthcoming) : Karl Polanyi: The Hungarian Writings]. With reference to new translations of his Hungarian writings, to interviews with his daughter, Kari Polanyi‐Levitt, as well as to biographical essays by György Litván, Évá Gábor, Endre Kiss, and Zoltán Horváth, this article explores his early influences, drawing attention in particular to his flirtation with and then violent reaction against philosophical materialism and ‘objectivist’ sociology, his appreciation of Ernst Mach’s positivism, and his adherence to the ‘functional theory’ of contemporary Guild Socialism.     

Estimating quantiles using optimally selected order statistics

This expository paper deals with the linear estimation of quantiles of location-scale families of distributions using a few selected order statistics.The general theory for the problem i s reviewed for the exact as well as the asymptotic cases.