DESIGNING HIGH-CONTACT SERVICE SYSTEMS: APPLICATION TO BRANCHES OF A SAVINGS AND LOAN*

The customer-contact model represents one of the few conceptually based approaches for designing service systems. This paper develops that concept further for high-contact systems, relative to efficiency and effectiveness notions. Four design features (contact technologies, contact training, data bases, and contact roles) are developed and a simple design methodology (built around the four design features) is presented. A demonstration of the design methodology is provided through its applications to branches of a savings and loan. Areas for additional theoretical and practical refinement of the model and the desirability of multidisciplinary research are discussed.     

地球上最后的雕塑

正今年37岁的阿根廷艺术家比利亚尔·罗哈斯(Villar Rojas)是当今全球艺术领域最为闪耀的明星之一,除了早早登上威尼斯双年展的舞台,更是美国大都会博物馆备受瞩目的年度委任计划中最为年轻的获选雕塑家。比利亚尔·罗哈斯素来以创作特定场域的作品见长。2014年,他就在著名的纽约High Line铁轨花园内举办了名为"The Evolution of God"("上帝的进化")的展览。其中展出的雕     

A Behavior Analytic Analogue of Learning to Use Synonyms,Syntax, and Parts of Speech

Matching-to-sample and sequence training procedures were used to develop responding to stimulus classes that were considered analogous to 3 aspects of verbal behavior: identifying synonyms and parts of speech, and using syntax. Matching-to-sample procedures were used to train 12 paired associates from among 24 stimuli. These pairs were analogous to synonyms. Then, sequence characteristics were trained to 6 of the stimuli. The result was the formation of 3 classes of 4 stimuli, with the classes controlling a sequence response analogous to a simple ordering syntax: first, second, and third. Matching-to-sample procedures were then used to add 4 stimuli to each class. These stimuli, without explicit sequence training, also began to control the same sequence responding as the other members of their class. Thus, three 8-member functionally equivalent sequence classes were formed. These classes were considered to be analogous to parts of speech. Further testing revealed three 8-member equivalence classes and 512 different sequences of first, second, and third. The study indicated that behavior analytic procedures may be used to produce some generative aspects of verbal behavior related to simple syntax and semantics.     

Middle‐Class Parents,Urban Schooling,and the Shift From Consumption to Production of Urban Space

Dominant approaches to the study of gentrification tend to attribute this process either to the production of urban space by elites or to the consumption of urban space by individual consumers. In this article, we take a preliminary step toward bridging this gap by illustrating how these groups may, in some cases, be the same actors. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with middle‐class parents in Boston, we explore the transitions that gentrifiers undergo as they age and have children. As young singles and childless couples, our respondents interacted with the city mainly as passive consumers. Years later, however, facing pressures to relocate in search of high‐quality educational options, these parents emerged as active producers of the urban landscape through their substantial involvement in their children's public elementary schools. This school‐based engagement reinforced their loyalties to their neighborhoods, dissuading them from moving to the suburbs. Since it is based on intense interactions with small local institutions, though, this strategy will likely be more difficult for parents to sustain in larger, less personal high schools. Thus, these parents may reconsider their dedication to city living as their children age. We discuss the implications of this research for urban theory and policy.     

Registration completeness and international comparisons of infant mortality

The physical development of the live born infant is the single most important variable governing its survival: infant mortality among those weighing 2,500 grams (5 1/2 pounds) or less at birth is 17 times the mortality among those weighing more than 2,500 grams at birth. The variation in mortality according to birth weight (or gestation) is greater than for subclasses of color, sex, maternal age, or birth order. Infant mortality in the United States is significantly higher than in a number of other countries e.g., Sweden, Netherlands, Norway. The difference is thought, by some, to be due to underregistration of low birth weight infants in other countries. In this paper, distributions of live births by birth weight for Denmark, England and Wales, New Zealand, and the United States, and infant mortality data for Denmark and the United States are examined. The data do not support a hypothesis of gross underregistration of live born infants in other countries. The results indicate that some index of physical development (birth weight, gestation, or a combination of both) should be included in any appraisal of infant mortality.     

Optimal stabilization policies for housing activity

The usual approach in econometric modeling is to assume that the behavior of government agencies is exogenous. In this paper we have suggested that the policies of government agencies are not truly exogenous and should be studied in relation to the specific objectives pursued by these agencies.Within this framework, we investigated the implications of optimizing the behavior of two U.S. government agencies, Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) and Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), involved in the housing market. The technique we have utilized is dynamic programming.Based on the assumption that there agencies attempt to stabilize the housing market we have calculated the values for the optimal strategies in the past years and compared them with the historical patterns they have actually followed. Our interpretation of the behavior of these agencies is as follows: FHLB has a significant potential for housing stabilization. However, it has historically put more emphasis on keeping a uniform policy than stabilizing the housing activity. In this way, the role it has played in the housing market may be more destabilizing than stabilizing. On the other hand, FNMA's activity has had a rather uncertain effect on the housing stabilization. The conservative policies that FNMA has followed in the past are consistent with the uncertainties implicit in decision making but, at the same time, can be blamed for failing to create sufficient information regarding their effectiveness on the housing stabilization.     

On the relevance and accountability of dialect: Conversation analysis and dialect contact

The present study seeks to illustrate how the theory and method of conversation analysis (CA) can be used to begin to unpack the notion of ‘contact’ in contact linguistics research. After reviewing language and dialect contact as they are traditionally conceptualized, we describe an additional set of questions inspired by CA's fundamental concern with relevance and accountability. It is argued that, by analyzing the structure and design of turn‐by‐turn talk in situations of dialect contact, we are able to investigate how co‐participants themselves go about carving out the boundaries of their respective dialects, how they can link those dialects to social identities, and how those social identities can become ‘procedurally consequential’ for the design of subsequent talk between the interlocutors. It is ultimately hypothesized that relevance and accountability at the micro‐interactional level may provide new insight into the moment‐by‐moment mechanisms that bring about the comparatively more macro‐level outcomes of dialect contact (e.g. leveling, koineization, etc.) that have been previously identified in contact linguistics research.