Moderate Deviations for Bayes Posteriors

Let ( X_k ) k be a sequence of i.i.d. random variables taking values in a set , and consider the problem of estimating the law of X₁ in a Bayesian framework. We prove, under mild conditions on the prior, that the sequence of posterior distributions satisfies a moderate deviation principle.     

THE ANSWERING MACHINE POSES MANY QUESTIONS FOR TELEPHONE SURVEY RESEARCHERS

The proliferation of the telephone answering machine raisesa number of questions about the continued efficiency of thetelephone as a data-gathering mechanism. The most critical ofthese is what effect the use of these machines might have onestablishing contact with potential respondents. If individualsroutinely use these machines to screen calls, then their accessibilityto telephone survey researchers will be restricted. A secondquestion is the degree to which respondents who own answeringmachines and are reachable are likely to participate in a survey.A third question is the extent to which the incidence of theanswering machine as a response disposition might vary by thetime of calling and the respondent's place of residence. Thefindings of this study, based on a nationwide survey, pointto a significant proportion of answering machine owners beingreachable and willing to participate. Furthermore, the answeringmachine appears to be in use more on weekends than on weekdayevenings and in more urbanized areas than in areas with fewerinhabitants.     

Race and gender as bases of class fractions and their effects on earnings

Maints auteurs ont affirmé que la race et le sexe repreésentent des bases de fractions de classe en ce sens que leur construction sociale permet à des segments d'une classe de se constituer à partir de caractéristiques liées à la race et au sexe. Cependant, les études ernpiriques antérieures tendent à considérer seulernent la race et le sexe comme des facteurs de fractionnernent au sein de la classe ouvrière seulement. À l'aide des données du recensement de 1986, cette communication analyse lea effets interactifs de la race et du sexe sur le revenu considéré comme facteur de fractionnement des classes. Les recherches de l'auteur indiquent que les effets produits par le groupement par race et par sexe sont inégaux en ce qui trait au revenu, les hommes gagnant davantage que les femmes tout en étant davantage ‘fractionnés’ par le revenu que les femmes. Lorsqu'on fait abstraction des différences de revenu entre classes, la race et le sexe demeurent des facteurs explicatifs importants du niveau de revenu, bien que leurs effets soient plus marqués chez les cadres, les professionnels et les ouvriers. L'écart entre les sexes est plus prononcé, mais la race demeure importante comme facteur de fractionnement au niveau des revenus des homrnes, měme après correction pour tenir cornpte d'autres variables. L'auteur affirme que l'assimilation des relations de sexe et de race aux relations entre classes est insatisfaisante et qu'il existe de sérieuses considérations théoriques pour considérer que les causes des inégalités entre les sexes et les races se trouvent non seulement à l'intérieur du domaine de la production, mais également à l'extérieur de celui-ci. The literature has argued that race and gender are bases of class fractions in that their social construction enables segments of a class to be constituted on racialized and gender-linked characteristics. However, previous empirical works tend to consider race or gender as fractionalizing the working class only. Using the 1986 Census data, this paper analyses the interactive effects of race and gender on earnings as grounds of fractionalizing classes. The findings indicate that race and gender groupings produce unequal effects on earnings: males have an income advantage over females, but race fractionalizes the earnings of men to a greater extent than for women. When inter-class differences in earnings are removed, race and gender remain important in explaining earnings, although their effects are stronger among the managerial, the professsional, and the working class. The gender gap is more pronounced, but race remains important in fractionalizing the earnings of men even after controlling for other variables. The paper argues that it is insufficient to subsume gender and race relations under class relations, and that there are compelling theoretical grounds to consider gender and race inequality as having roots both within and outside the sphere of production.     

Social Capital, Resource Mobilization and Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

Abstract  This article critiques the contradictory claims of Robert Putnam and Aldon Morris in relation to the American civil rights movement. Putnam identifies the South as the American region most lacking in social capital, and argues more generally that the 1960s marked a watershed beyond which social capital in the United States declined in all regions. Morris identifies the indigenous resources of southern African American communities as fundamental to the civil rights movement's emergence in the late 1950s and sees the social networks and cultural assets of the African American church in particular as central to the movement. The article disputes Putnam's negative judgment of the South by highlighting the role played by various types of social capital in the movement's launch. It also challenges Morris's over-emphasis on the ability of charismatic, black church leadership to deliver mass support and re-affirms the role played by female lay figures, such as beauticians.     

Psycho-Drama as a Medium for Intermediate Treatment

Summary This paper is an account of an Intermediate Treatment Groupset up in February 1975. It uses spontaneous drama as its onlyactivity. It is argued that this provides general personal growthin a supportive atmosphere as well as allowing experimentationwith specific problem situations. The methods used are describedand an attempt is made to discuss the dynamics involved in theseprocesses.     

THE PERILS OF EXCELLENCE: BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT IN PRODUCT-DRIVEN FIRMS

Several authors have suggested that a focus on manufacturing capability and on continued process improvement may be a powerful source of competitive advantage, yet many firms appear to have encountered great difficulties in taking advantage of this insight. This paper reports on the results of five these conducted under the auspices of the MIT Leaders for Manufacturing program at the Microwave Technology Division of the Hewlett-Packard Company. We found considerable evidence that the marginal returns to process development within the division were probably considerably higher than the division's cost of capital, suggesting that process improvement probably was underfunded despite the fact that improving manufacturing capability had been identified as a key strategic priority. We found no evidence that this “underfunding” reflected either a failure to recognize the problem or an overly hierarchical or rigid organization. Rather it appeared to flow from the historical strengths of the division. A devotion to leading-edge technical solutions and to immediate customer service at almost any price had created barriers to the effective funding of process improvement that were deeply rooted in the organizational structures, information systems, and formal and informal incentive structures that had evolved to support the division's historical emphasis on excellence on product design. Our results highlight the problems that very successful product-driven companies may encounter in attempting to make continual process improvement central to their strategic mission.     

INSIGHTS ON SERVICE SYSTEM DESIGN FROM A NORMAL APPROXIMATION TO ERLANG'S DELAY FORMULA

We show how a simple normal approximation to Erlang's delay formula can be used to analyze capacity and staffing problems in service systems that can be modeled as M/M/s queues. The numbers of servers, s, needed in an M/M/s queueing system to assure a probability of delay of, at most, p can be well approximated by s ≅ p + z_***I-p+, where z_1-p, is the (1 - p)th percentile of the standard normal distribution and ρ, the presented load on the system, is the ratio of Λ, the customer arrival rate, to μ, the service rate. We examine the accuracy of this approximation over a set of parameters typical of service operations ranging from police patrol, through telemarketing to automatic teller machines, and we demonstrate that it tends to slightly underestimate the number of servers actually needed to hit the delay probability target—adding one server to the number suggested by the above formula typically gives the exact result. More importantly, the structure of the approximation promotes operational insight by explicitly linking the number of servers with server utilization and the customer service level. Using a scenario based on an actual teleservicing operation, we show how operations managers and designers can quickly obtain insights about the trade-offs between system size, system utilization and customer service. We argue that this little used approach deserves a prominent role in the operations analyst's and operations manager's toolbags.     

Governing the transnational organic cotton network from Benin

In this article, we attempt to conceptualize the historical development and the governance structure of the transnational organic cotton network from Benin. We aim to discover how the organic cotton production‐consumption network is governed locally and internationally. Existing bodies of literature on international agricultural production networks, in particular the Global Value Chains (GVC) perspective, focus on economic dimensions, but find it difficult to incorporate the sustainability dimension. We favour widening the concept of GVCs beyond economics by acknowledging and including environmental rationalities and the representatives of their interests, not as external elements, but rather as co‐governing or co‐structuring factors (or actors) of sustainable value chains. Our findings reveal that beyond the traditional producer versus buyer dualism, intermediate stakeholders, namely transnational and local environmental NGO networks, are instrumental in the construction, maintenance and transformation of the organic cotton network. It is also apparent that farmers' leaders play an important role in mediating and (re)building trust among organic farmers, though they exert insufficient vertical power in the organic cotton network to control it.     

AN IMPROVED HEURISTIC FOR STAFFING TELEPHONE CALL CENTERS WITH LIMITED OPERATING HOURS

Many telephone call centers that experience cyclic and random customer demand adjust their staffing over the day in an attempt to provide a consistent target level of customer service. The standard and widely used staffing method, which we call the stationary independent period by period (SIPP) approach, divides the workday into planning periods and uses a series of stationary independent Erlang‐c queuing models—one for each planning period—to estimate minimum staffing needs. Our research evaluates and improves upon this commonly used heuristic for those telephone call centers with limited hours of operation during the workday. We show that the SIPP approach often suggests staffing that is substantially too low to achieve the targeted customer service levels (probability of customer delay) during critical periods. The major reasons for SIPP‘ s shortfall are as follows: (1) SIPP's failure to account for the time lag between the peak in customer demand and when system congestion actually peaks; and (2) SIPP’ s use of the planning period average arrival rate, thereby assuming that the arrival rate is constant during the period. We identify specific domains for which SIPP tends to suggest inadequate staffing. Based on an analysis of the factors that influence the magnitude of the lag in infinite server systems that start empty and idle, we propose and test two simple “lagged” SIPP modifications that, in most situations, consistently achieve the service target with only modest increases in staffing.