A verisimilitude of pessimism: Scottish prisoner mug-shots, 1883–1927

This paper examines the stigmatisation of identity. Historic prisoner mug shots taken in two Scottish prisons during the late Victorian period constitute a part of archival base of this study from which generalisations to the contemporary world are conjectured. Cultural criminologists propose crime is normatively framed. Mug shots belong with a larger symbolism within a discourse of crime and culture. This article examines the scientific and cultural environs within which a dangerous semiotic of the mug shot image originated. The ‘gaze’ of the mug shot, it is argued, suffers from class stigmata circulating elite Victorian scientific laboratories and drawing-rooms. Criminal anthropology, it is argued, constructed visual sources as tools for reaching certainty, but in this project generated processes of social closure. Morphological deviations from the norm defined the ‘criminal body’.     

Upper bounds for the variances of certain random variables

Jacobson (1969) proved that the variance of a unimodal distribution on the unit interval is bounded above by 1/9. This paper generalizes Jacobson's result by deriving sharp upper bounds for the variances of α-unimodal distributions and for the variances of S-shaped distributions.     

Social Sector Priorities: An Analysis of Budgets and Expenditures in India in the 1990s

Many policies in India, including economic reform policies, are officially intended to alleviate poverty. But how committed is the Indian government? And to what? This article addresses India's social spending priorities over the past decade. Looking at the rhetoric in budget speeches, actual expenditure patterns and the process by which budgets are formulated, it finds a widened concept of poverty and a shift away from income and employment programmes to human development. The budget‐making process is not very participatory, and the role of the Finance Ministry has increased. Although the widening of the concept of poverty has positive aspects, within the overall context of structural adjustment it has facilitated the politically convenient neglect of other dimensions (income and employment).     

RFID for Better Supply‐Chain Management through Enhanced Information Visibility

Mostly fueled by mandates, adoption, and implementation of the RFID, technology in the retail industry is growing rapidly. At these early stages of adoption, one puzzling issue for retailers and suppliers is the compelling business case for RFID. In order to explore the potential business case for RFID, we conducted a case study using actual RFID data collected by a major retailer for the cases shipped by one of its major suppliers. We show the physical layout of the RFID readers on a partial supply‐chain covering product movement from distribution centers to retail stores. First, in the analysis phase, we identify several performance metrics that can be computed from the RFID readings. Next, using this RFID data, we compute the values of those performance metrics. These values represent mean time between movements at different locations. Then, we discuss how these measures can assist in improving logistical performance at a micro supply chain level of operations between a distribution center and a retail store. We present how such information can be valuable to both the retail store operator and the supplier. We also discuss the initial lessons learned from actual RFID data collected in the field, in terms of data quality issues.