The struggle for Via Bologna street market: crisis,racial denial and speaking back to power in Naples Italy

This paper is based on ethnographic research conducted with migrant and Italian street vendors in Naples, southern Italy, in 2012. It tells the story of Via Bologna market which was nearly closed down by the City Hall at the time. Naples is a city where issues of poverty and unemployment pre‐date and have been exacerbated by manifold narratives of crisis now unfolding across Europe regarding the economy, political legitimacy, security and migration. Street markets have always been an important and visible economic survival strategy for both Neapolitans and migrants there. This article shows how the Via Bologna street vendors appropriated and adapted discourses about crisis to form their own cosmopolitan social movement that halted the closure of the market. It argues that, in the age of globalized migration, the multilingual nature of such collective action is central to understanding social struggles that must be organized between marginalized groups of people divided by race, religion, politics and legal status. This, frequently ambiguous, transcultural solidarity speaks back against a mainstream post‐racial discourse – often articulated by the Neapolitan street vendors at the market – that would reduce the complexity of such collective action to questions of poverty and class struggle.     

Food in Foster Families: Care,Communication and Conflict

This study explores the significance of food and mealtimes in relation to the transition into foster care and the therapeutic settling of the child in a new family. In doing so, we draw upon an in‐depth, qualitative case study of 10 experienced foster families in the UK focusing on what helped them to be successful. At the time of the study, there were 16 foster children, aged 9–16, living with the families. Data collection included semi‐structured qualitative interviews and audio‐diaries with all family members who wished to be involved as well as eco‐maps produced by the young people. Thematic analysis and data extracts are reproduced in the study to demonstrate that meals and food preferences can function to affirm identities, membership and boundaries of family life as well as provide a site of conflict and control.     

A SIMULATION ANALYSIS OF THE JAPANESE JUST-IN-TIME TECHNIQUE (WITH KANBANS) FOR A MULTILINE,MULTISTAGE PRODUCTION SYSTEM

The Japanese “just-in-time with kanban” technique reduces in-process inventory to absolute minimal levels, in concert with the Japanese belief that inventory is an unnecessary evil. Due to the success of Japanese firms that employ this type of system, American firms would like to import this technique and emulate Japanese successes. But this Japanese success may be attributable not only to the just-in-time with kanban technique but also to the production environment in which the technique is employed. This paper simulates the just-in-time with kanban technique for a multiline, multistage production system in order to determine its adaptability to an American production environment that might include such characteristics as variable processing times, variable master production scheduling, and imbalances between production stages. The results have practical implications for those firms considering adoption of the Japanese technique.     

Assembly Line Balancing Using Genetic Algorithms with Heuristic-Generated Initial Populations and Multiple Evaluation Criteria*

We use genetic algorithms (GA) to solve the assembly line balancing (ALB) problem. Inparticular, we show how this technique can be used to generate feasible line balances, improve upon solutions obtained by other heuristics reported in the literature, and utilizeany one or more evaluation criteria that can be expressed in functional form. The procedure is demonstrated with two examples: (1) intimating the improvement of heuristic-generated ALB solutions by including them in the GA initial population, and (2) the possibility of balancing assembly lines with multiple criteria and side constraints. These examples suggest that GA can be a powerful tool in ALB. To investigate the utility of GA on single-criterion problems, an experiment is conducted that compares both the GA approach and conventional heuristics. Results indicate that the GA solutions are significantly improved over the heuristic solutions under the conditions studied. It is also found that the presence of heuristic-generated conventional solutions in the GA initial population leads to statistically preferred results.     

Open innovation and quality management: the moderating role of interorganisational IT infrastructure and complementary learning styles

This study seeks to explain the influence of quality management on the relationship between open innovation and performance. We propose that, to contribute to open innovation performance, an organisation’s commitment to quality improvement must rely on the combination of its own resources and capabilities and its open innovation partners’ resources and capabilities. Specifically, we examine the moderating role of an interorganisational IT infrastructure and the complementarity of learning styles among an organisation committed to quality improvement and its supply network. Using data from 270 managers of European firms, our results show that the negative effects of quality management on open innovation performance can be overcome by complementing the organisation’s learning style with that of its open innovation partner, particularly, its supply network, and, most importantly, obtaining information technologies compatible with those of its supply network members.     

Net migration and migration effectiveness: A comparison between Australia and the United Kingdom, 1976–96

This paper explores the impact of net migration in Australia and the United Kingdom using measures of migration effectiveness computed from period-age migration data for four consecutive five-year periods. Results reported in Part 1 of this paper (Stillwellet al. 2000) suggest that while the overall effectiveness of net migration at the scale of city regions has declined over the twenty-year period in both countries, important geographical variations are evident. Part 2 considers how patterns of migration effectiveness vary by age and presents a single classification of all the city regions on the basis of age-specific effectiveness. More detailed analysis includes spatial patterns for particular age groups and net migration profiles of selected regions. Cohort effects are shown to be important for explaining changes between time periods in these regions.     

Welfare generosity, pregnancies and abortions among unmarried AFDC recipients

Even before the 1996 overhaul of the U.S. welfare system, a number of states had ended the practice of paying extra benefits to families who have additional children while receiving welfare. Proponents believe that this reform can reduce births to recipients, however many worry that it may encourage women to obtain abortions. Using a sample of unmarried AFDC recipients from the NLSY, we estimate a bivariate probit model of pregnancy and, conditional on becoming pregnant, the probability of abortion. Our results lend some support for the proposition that reducing incremental AFDC benefits will decrease pregnancies without increasing abortions. Received: 16 April 1998/Accepted: 11 March 1999