AN ANALYSIS OF CAPACITY PLANNING PROCEDURES FOR A MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS PLANNING SYSTEM*

This paper is concerned with planning work-center capacity levels in manufacturing firms that employ a material requirements planning (MRP) system. It presents four procedures for developing work-center capacity plans designed to insure the production of components and assemblies as specified by the MRP plan and the master production schedule (MPS). These procedures (capacity planning using overall factors, capacity bills, resource profiles, and capacity requirements planning) are compared using simulation analysis. The results indicate that the performance of a procedure when measured against the MPS depends on the operating conditions of the manufacturing system. The results also indicate that the choice of a particular procedure often represents a compromise among the benefits of improved MPS performance, the costs of preparing and processing data, and the premium expenses required for more frequent adjustments in work-center capacity levels.     

Becoming lesbian mothers

Lesbian mothering strategies are commonly theorized as instances of assimilationism or resistance. This essay critiques those approaches and presents a promising alternative using the conceptual framework of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Their concepts of "becoming" and "rhizoming" are utilized as mechanisms for understanding the inconsistencies and contradictions that constitute the subjectivities of two lesbian co-mothers. The essay concludes with the political implications of these analyses.     

College students’ attitudes toward abortion and commitment to the issue

Male and female participants were surveyed on abortion attitudes, commitment, and abortion experience. Results revealed a normal distribution of abortion attitudes rejecting the notion that the vast majority of the sample would have significantly pro-choice views. No significant difference was found in overall abortion attitudes of males vs. females, however, individuals with direct abortion experience were found to have significantly stronger pro-choice attitudes than individuals without direct abortion experience. Overall, college students reported a moderate degree of commitment to the issue of abortion. Females were significantly more committed than males, individuals with direct abortion experience were significantly more committed than individuals without direct abortion experience, and individuals with more extreme abortion attitudes were significantly more committed than those with weaker, more ambivalent, attitudes. No significant difference was found in level of commitment between pro-choice and pro-life individuals.     

A praxis and Research Agenda for Multicultural Human Services Organizations

Human services organizations in the United States are currently faced with the problems of a diminishing and shifting resource base coupled with increasing demands for services. In addition, national demographic changes with increasing social diversity, and a rise in racial, ethnic, gender and other group-based tensions have posed special challenges for human service organizations. By tracing the history of social work approaches to working with ethnic minorities, this paper argues that responses to environmental flux have in fact been inadequate in addressing issues of social inequalities and injustices. We articulate a vision of socially just and diverse human services organizations that are both empowering and empowered. We call these Multicultural Human Services Organizations (MHSO). We spell out praxis and research agendas that continue the social justice-social diversity mission that is central to our vision.     

Asymptotic Bias in Parameter Estimation of AR-Processes Using Recursive Least Squares with Exponential Forgetting

The recursive least squares technique is often extended with exponential forgetting as a tool for parameter estimation in time-varying systems. The distribution of the resulting parameter estimates is, however, unknown when the forgetting factor is less than one. In this paper an approximative expression for bias of the recursively obtained parameter estimates in a time-invariant AR( n_a ) process with arbitrary noise is given, showing that the bias is non-zero and giving bounds on the approximation errors. Simulations confirm the approximation expressions.     

Testing for No Effect by Cosine Series Methods

The properties of three lack-of-fit tests that are related to non-parametric cosine regression analysis are examined in the context of testing for a constant mean function. Analytic power comparisons of these tests vs a most powerful test are made using intermediate asymptotic relative efficiency. In particular, a data-driven test is produced which is asymptotically as efficient as the most powerful test over a class of alternatives. A small scale simulation experiment is conducted to ascertain the extent that the large sample comparisons are applicable to finite samples.     

A class of weighted dependence measures for bivariate failure time data

This paper considers a class of summary measures of the dependence between a pair of failure time variables over a finite follow-up region. The class consists of measures that are weighted averages of local dependence measures, and includes the cross-ratio-measure and finite region version of Kendall's τ; recently proposed by the authors. Two new special cases are identified that can avoid the need to estimate the bivariate survivor function and that admit explicit variance estimators. Nonparametric estimators of such dependence measures are proposed and are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal with variances that can be consistently estimated. Properties of selected estimators are evaluated in a simulation study, and the method is illustrated through an analysis of Australian Twin Study data.     

Asymptotic inference for mixture models by using data-dependent priors

For certain mixture models, improper priors are undesirable because they yield improper posteriors. However, proper priors may be undesirable because they require subjective input. We propose the use of specially chosen data-dependent priors. We show that, in some cases, data-dependent priors are the only priors that produce intervals with second-order correct frequentist coverage. The resulting posterior also has another interpretation: it is the product of a fixed prior and a pseudolikelihood.     

Maternal Postpartum Depression Increases Vulnerability for Toddler Behavior Problems through Infant Cortisol Reactivity

The current study examined the role of hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal reactivity (a physiological indicator of stress) in early infancy as a mediator of the relationship between maternal postpartum depression and toddler behavior problems. Participants were 137 at‐risk mothers and their children participating in a longitudinal study of intergenerational transmission of risk. Mothers’ depression was measured five times during the infants’ first 18 months. Infant cortisol was collected during a social stressor (the still‐face paradigm) when infants were 6 months old, and mothers reported on toddlers’ internalizing and externalizing symptoms at 18 months. Among this sample of high‐risk mother–infant dyads, early postpartum depression predicted atypical infant cortisol reactivity at 6 months, which mediated the effect of maternal depression on increased toddler behavior problems. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Transgender,Hysteria, and the Other Sexual Difference: An Ettingerian Approach

This article uses the feminist-psychoanalytic scholarship of Bracha L. Ettinger to consider a relationship between the discourse of the hysteric and the discourse of transgender (trans*). Both discourses struggle to articulate a dimension of being that lacks symbolization in the socio-Symbolic. My contention is that trans* subjectivity is metonymically linked to the discourse of the hysteric, and that both demographics are attuned to what Ettinger calls an Other Sexual Difference. Moreover, they are both writing something in excess of the phallic signifier that can, in Lacanian terms, circumscribe the man (as one) but not the woman (as not whole).