To Pool or Not to Pool in Call Centers

Should service capacities (such as agent groups in call centers) be pooled or not? This paper will show that there is no single answer. For the simple but generic situation of two (strictly pooled or unpooled) server groups, it will provide (1) insights and approximate formulae, (2) numerical support, and (3) general conclusions for the waiting‐time effect of pooling. For a single call type, this effect is clearly positive, as represented by a pooling factor. With multiple job types, however, the effect is determined by both a pooling and a mix factor. Due to the mix factor, this effect might even be negative. In this case, it is also numerically illustrated that an improvement of both the unpooled and the strictly pooled scenario can be achieved by simple overflow or threshold scenarios. The results are of both practical and theoretical interest: practical for awareness of this negative effect, the numerical orders, and practical scenarios in call centers, and theoretical for further research in more complex situations.     

The Trace Restriction: An Alternative Identification Strategy for the Bayesian Multinomial Probit Model

Previous authors have made Bayesian multinomial probit models identifiable by fixing a parameter on the main diagonal of the covariance matrix. The choice of which element one fixes can influence posterior predictions. Thus, we propose restricting the trace of the covariance matrix, which we achieve without computational penalty. This permits a prior that is symmetric to permutations of the nonbase outcome categories. We find in real and simulated consumer choice datasets that the trace-restricted model is less prone to making extreme predictions. Further, the trace restriction can provide stronger identification, yielding marginal posterior distributions that are more easily interpreted.     

Participation of youth in decision‐making procedures during residential care: A narrative review

Participation in decision‐making procedures of young people in care is considered a key element that affects their current or future living circumstances and might improve the quality of decision‐making on and delivery of provided services. This narrative literature review, covering the period 2000–2016, focuses on the opportunities of young people to participate, the challenges and facilitators to participation, and the outcomes of care related to participation. Sixteen studies met our search criteria. Several studies show that young people seem to have limited possibilities to “meaningful” participation in decision‐making. Various challenges and facilitators in the participation process emerge with regard to the level of the young person, the professional, and the (sociocultural) context. None of the studies provides evidence for a connection between the “amount” of youth participation in decision‐making and/or treatment during the care process and the outcomes of residential care. Implications for research and practice are reflected upon.     

Group variable selection in cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation data for veterinary patients

Cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR) is a procedure to restore spontaneous circulation in patients with cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA). While animals with CPA generally have a lower success rate of CPCR than people do, CPCR studies in veterinary patients have been limited. In this paper, we construct a model for predicting success or failure of CPCR, and identifying and evaluating factors that affect the success of CPCR in veterinary patients. Due to reparametrization using multiple dummy variables or close proximity in nature, many variables in the data form groups, and thus a desirable method should take this grouping feature into account in variable selection. To accomplish these goals, we propose an adaptive group bridge method for a logistic regression model. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated under different simulated setups and compared with several other regression methods. Using the logistic group bridge model, we analyze data from a CPCR study for veterinary patients and discuss their implications on the practice of veterinary medicine.     

Migrant and asylum-seeker children returned to Kosovo and Albania: predictive factors for social–emotional wellbeing after return

The return of rejected asylum seekers has a high priority on the national agendas of European States. In order to make well-informed asylum decisions involving children, knowledge of how asylum-seeker children fare after their return to their countries of origin is needed. This study aims to gain knowledge about the child-rearing environment and the social–emotional wellbeing of migrant children who have returned to Kosovo and Albania after a stay in a European host country. Based on a sample of 106 returned families, the study investigated the predictive factors for children’s social–emotional wellbeing using regression analyses. The findings show that procedural characteristics and ethnicity predict wellbeing, mediated through the quality of the child-rearing environment. The most vulnerable children did not have a stable resident status in the host country, belonged to a minority ethnic group and were older adolescents. The findings indicate that the wellbeing of returned children is not only dependent on conditions after repatriation, but also on the conditions which the families left in the host country. To enable sustainable return in a child’s best interests, the needs of vulnerable families and children should be thoroughly assessed prior to return, and reintegration support should be tailored to their situation.     

Qualitative sociology in Israel—A brief survey

Conclusion Despite the proliferation of quantitative studies in Israeli sociology, qualitative approaches remain vigorously pursued by a large number of academic sociologists, who address a wide variety of problems by a heterogeneous mix of theoretical approaches, methodologies, and research techniques. While these studies yielded a rich harvest of respectable publications, the majority are not conducted in terms of theories and methodologies which are presently at the forefront of qualitative research in the United States and Europe. This is true even for the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which is still the leading exponent of QS in Israel. It is difficult to decide whether some of the currently fashionable approaches, such as French neostructuralism and American ethnomethodology, propose viable programs which will have a major impact on sociology or are just passing fashions. Nevertheless, Israeli sociologistsshould pay more attention to these and similar current developments on the international scene and examine critically the usefulness of these developments for their own research interests and projects.The same is true in the field of application of the new computer technologies to qualitative data. Very few Israeli sociologists have made any serious efforts in the development or application of such technologies in their studies. It is in these areas that greater attention and a possible partial reorientation of QS in Israel will be necessary in the future, if Israeli qualitative sociologists are to keep the place which they currently occupy in the international professional community.     

Counter-Cultural Movements and Totalitarian Democracy

Talmon's concept of "totalitarian democracy" is generalized, to make it applicable to the variety of counter-cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In particular, we expanded Talmon's concept of political liberty into a more general desire for "liberation," offered in different forms by these movements. Accordingly, the movements are classified by two variables: the direction of liberation (inner or outer) to which they aspired, and the degree of their attempt to monopolize the means of its realization (monopolistic or pluralistic). Four types of movements are identified and examined for their potential for totalitarian democracy: (1) Movements of Self-Fulfillment, (2) Cults of Self-Realization, (3) Radical Protest Movements, (4) Revolutionary Movements. Marked differences in totalitarian potential were found, the lowest in movements of self-fulfullment and the highest in cults of self-realization.     

Regression analysis and ratio analysis for domains: A randomization-theory approach

In most surveys, inference for domains poses a difficult problem because of data shortage. This paper presents a probability sampling theory approach to some common types of statistical analysis for domains of a surveyed population. Simple and multiple regression analysis, and analysis of ratios are considered. Two new methods are constructed and explored which can improve substantially over the common method based on sample-weighted sums of squares and products. These new methods use auxiliary variables whose importance depends on the extent to which they succeed in explaining certain patterns in the regression residuals. The theoretical conclusions are supported by empirical results from Monte Carlo experiments.