On-line bin packing with restricted repacking

Semi-on-line algorithms for the bin-packing problem allow, in contrast to pure on-line algorithms, the use of certain types of additional operations for each step. Examples include repacking, reordering or lookahead before packing the items. Here we define and analyze a semi-on-line algorithm where for each step at most k items can be repacked, for some positive integer k. We prove that the upper bound for the asymptotic competitive ratio of the algorithm is a decreasing function of k, which tends to 3/2 as k goes to infinity. We also establish lower bounds for this ratio and show that the gap between upper and lower bounds is relatively small.     

Social Networking and Individual Perceptions: Examining Predictors of Participation

Social networking is a process and practice that draws people and organizations together in an electronic medium. This article explores social interaction-based theories to suggest a social networking participation model that may help organizations understand acceptance or rejection of participation. Responses from 191 public administrators were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), focusing on relationships between participation and five constructs: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived improvement potential (PIP), intra-organizational trust, and type of use. The study found favorable model fit statistics that support positive correlations between the latent variables examined and participation in social networking activities. The results demonstrate the potential of the survey instrument to serve as an adoption and participation model to predict and promote social networking activities as they relate to perceived performance improvement.     

Harassment at the Workplace: A Practical Review of the Laws in the United Kingdom and the United States of America

Harassment is a major deterrent for productivity, loyalty, and commitment to one’s job and organization. Unfortunately, many employees tend to experience various forms of harassment in the workplace. The focus in this article is to understand the extent to which the law protects a person from harassment, first based on the explication and application laws in the United Kingdom. The article then provides comparative discussion of laws and practices against workplace harassment in the United States. A major objective of this article is to help employers and managers become more expert in preventing and correcting harassment.     

Antecendents and effects of decision comprehensiveness: The role of decision quality and perceived uncertainty

On the basis of a sample of 184 top executives, we investigated the roles of decision quality and perceived uncertainty in the relationship between decision comprehensiveness and performance. Our results show that decision quality mediates a large proportion of the comprehensiveness–performance relationship and may thus provide a more proximate outcome measure of the effect of comprehensiveness. In addition, we found that perceived uncertainty directly affects the level of comprehensiveness in organizations rather than moderating its effect on performance as conceptualized by previous research. Based on the integration of behavioral and information processing theories we suggest that more process-oriented measures such as decision quality and perceived uncertainty may overcome conflicting empirical results in the field.     

Community councils as a medium for public participation: a case study in Grampian region

Planning authorities in Scotland are obliged to consult the public before finalising policies and proposals to be included in their development plans. Community councils are intended to operate as ‘the voice of a neighbourhood’ and this paper analyses an attempt by a regional planning authority to use community councils as a vehicle for consulting the public in the preparation of a structure plan for a rural area. The paper concludes that the attempt was unsuccessful because the community councils were not clear about the role they were expected to play; nor were they adequately prepared for their role. The authors believe, however, that the involvement of community councils has potential for promoting greater public participation in the preparation of development plans.     

Using the EM-algorithm for survival data with incomplete categorical covariates

Incomplete covariate data is a common occurrence in many studies in which the outcome is survival time. With generalized linear models, when the missing covariates are categorical, a useful technique for obtaining parameter estimates is the EM by the method of weights proposed in Ibrahim (1990). In this article, we extend the EM by the method of weights to survival outcomes whose distributions may not fall in the class of generalized linear models. This method requires the estimation of the parameters of the distribution of the covariates. We present a clinical trials example with five covariates, four of which have some missing values.     

Modelling the management of underground water assets

Central to the activities of any industry is the modernization of its assets. This paper describes the application of statistical methods to the asset management plan of a large water company. A model for the underground assets is given in detail, and the extensive computations required are illustrated. A Bayesian model shows the consequences of various policy options and provides realistic measures of the uncertainty connected with them.     

The Poverty of Deductivism: A Constructive Realist Model of Sociological Explanation

Despite the lip service which many sociologists pay to Popper's hypothetico‐deductive model (HDM) of theory testing, few if any major social theories have been definitively falsified. The reason is that sociological explanations do not fit the deductivist model of explanation: They do not contain universal or statistical "covering laws" from which falsifiable hypotheses could be deduced. Sociological explanations are better conceived in realist terms as causal models of the social processes that produce certain outcomes. While few models are completely false, some are nonetheless more empirically adequate than others. This essay argues that (1) the CLM is inadequate to sociology and that (2) attempts to reformulate the HDM are therefore destined to fail. It then outlines (3) a constructive realist model (CRM) of sociological explanation and uses it to develop (4) explanatory realist (ER) criteria for evaluating explanations. Deductivist and realist approaches to methodology are then compared through an examination of Skocpol's States and Social Revolutions .