Returns to scale in food preparation and the Deaton–Paxson puzzle

We consider returns to scale in food preparation as a potential resolution of a puzzle raised by Deaton and Paxson (Journal of Political Economy, 106(5), 897–930, 1998). We clarify the conditions under which returns to scale in food preparation can resolve the puzzle. The key requirement is that foods are heterogeneous in time costs. We then show that detailed food expenditure and time use data are consistent with larger households shifting to more time intensive foods.     

Predicting program success for adult offenders with serious mental illness in a court ordered diversion program

ABSTRACT

Individuals with mental illnesses are disproportionately involved with the criminal justice system and are now being diverted from jails to community-based supervision. This study examines secondary data from a state hospital, mental health diversion program. Logistic regression was used to examine risk factors that best predicted successful program completion. Results indicate that non-whites are more likely to complete. Participants in supervised housing, ever been re-hospitalized, diagnosed with a depressive or psychotic disorder or who had their probation revoked were less likely to complete. Findings indicate practitioners should provide a holistic and individually oriented treatment approach for success.     

Making it relevant: how a black male teacher sustained professional relationships through culturally responsive discourse

What we know about the experiences of black teachers is limited, especially considering the vast amount of research conducted on and about black boys and young men. This article describes and analyzes how a black teacher at a suburban high school in the Midwestern United States negotiated professional relationships through culturally relevant discourse. Anthony Bell was the only black male teacher participating in a classroom discourse analysis study group at a diverse suburban high school. Throughout the course of the semester, Anthony’s stated objective for learning discourse analysis was to understand, structure, and facilitate more productive conversations with a struggling student teacher he was mentoring. Yet Anthony also used his discursive inquiry to “trouble the water” in his classroom and in the study group workshops. Participation in the study group provided Anthony with metalinguistic tools to critique his interactions with his students, student teacher, and professional peers. Anthony’s analyses of his own teaching, his student teacher’s work, the study group, and the school index themes in critical and critical race theory in education. As he became a teacher researcher, Anthony reported a greater sense of professional self-efficacy, eventually facilitating a successful workshop at a national teacher conference. Anthony’s case is an exemplar of the unique and critical role of black men who teach, as well as the imperative of practitioner research within the current climate in teacher education.     

From origins to destinations: acculturation trajectories in migrants’ attitudes towards homosexuality

Many immigrants in Western countries hail from countries where attitudes towards gender relations and sexual norms are considerably more conservative than in the host countries where they eventually settle. This paper assesses whether immigrants and their children acculturate in this dimension, and how migrants’ cultural practices and economic integration influence this process. Presenting a conceptual and methodological innovation, this paper treats acculturation as a process by which immigrants (and their children) shift from the attitude distribution in the origin country to the one of the host country. Using a cross-classified hierarchical regression model and data on attitudes towards homosexuality in 83 countries of origin and 23 destination countries, I model the relative influence of origin and destination contexts on the attitudes of 15,000 immigrants and children of immigrants in Europe. In line with previous work, I find considerable evidence for acculturation across and within generations, but also important variation: respondents who use the home-country language, who are religious, or who are economically marginalised, show less acculturation in attitudes, though these effects vary between immigrants and the second generation.     

Redundant configuration of automated flow lines based on “Industry 4.0”-technologies

Over the past decades, robots have been heavily used for flow lines to increase productivity and product quality and to relieve workers of repetitive and dangerous tasks. However, despite continuous improvement of robots, the occurrence of failures remains a significant challenge in the operation of automated flow lines. Due to the connection of the stations in a flow line via a material handling system, failures at one station can quickly lead to throughput losses due to blocking and starving of upstream and downstream stations, respectively. To some extent, these throughput losses can be reduced by installing buffers between the stations. However, the installation of buffers requires considerable investments and scarce factory space. Therefore, the minimization of the total number of buffers is one of the primary objectives in flow line planning. Due to the advances of manufacturing technologies that form the foundation of “Industry 4.0”, new solutions to reduce throughput losses caused by equipment failures open up. One solution is a redundant configuration, in which downstream stations automatically take over the operations of failed stations in the event of failure. The throughput loss in these situations mainly depends on the level of redundancy designed into the system. Based on existing methods for the design of automated flow lines, we present two line balancing formulations for the configuration of automated flow lines under consideration of redundancies. The first formulation aims at maximizing the lines’ level of redundancy. The second formulation aims at a balanced allocation of redundancies along the line. To evaluate the presented formulations, we compare the performance with an existing line balancing approach for automated lines. With respect to this approach, improvements of the throughput rate between 3 % and 7 % are achieved.     

Industrial Relations Agenda for Change: The Case of the United States

ABSTRACT: Over the past several decades, all of the advanced industrial societies have experienced growing pressures on the institutions governing their industrial relations systems. In this paper, the authors analyze the changes in collective bargaining, and more generally, in the entire industrial relations system in the United States. This analysis also takes into consideration the environmental pressures that have produced these changes, and the measures taken by labour and management organizations to cope with them. Underlying this analysis is the central premise that sustaining and diffusing changes in industrial relations will be necessary to achieve a     

A presumption to disclose: new laws on the provision of information about child sex offenders to parents in England and Wales

In England and Wales, agencies managing child sex offenders in the community have long had the power to disclose information on those offenders to other agencies and sometimes to individual members of the public; this process has variously been referred to as ‘discretionary disclosure’ or ‘controlled disclosure’. In 2008, new laws were passed to strengthen this process and allow designated members of the public to request such information and imposed a new duty on agencies considering disclosure to conduct those considerations with a ‘presumption to disclose’. This article looks at the background to the new laws and how they might work in practice. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.