Regional patterns of affirmative action compliance costs

In this paper we estimate the amount by which firms' labor costs are increased by compliance with affirmative action regulations imposed on federal contractors for 160 SMSAs in 1980. The paper focuses on determining the cause(s) for variation in these compliance costs across SMSAs and in identifying areas of high and low compliance cost. We find that compliance costs are lower in larger SMSAs, more rapidly growing SMSAs, and SMSAs that have relatively large proportions of minorities and females in the labor market.The authors would like to thank Fred Wildes and Long Gen Ying, both of San Diego State University, for their assistance on this project. In addition, support for Prof. Getis' work was provided by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. SES-9123832.This paper was presented at the annual conference of the Western Regional Science Association in Tucson, Arizona.     

Fuzzy grey relational analysis for software effort estimation

Accurate and credible software effort estimation is a challenge for academic research and software industry. From many software effort estimation models in existence, Estimation by Analogy (EA) is still one of the preferred techniques by software engineering practitioners because it mimics the human problem solving approach. Accuracy of such a model depends on the characteristics of the dataset, which is subject to considerable uncertainty. The inherent uncertainty in software attribute measurement has significant impact on estimation accuracy because these attributes are measured based on human judgment and are often vague and imprecise. To overcome this challenge we propose a new formal EA model based on the integration of Fuzzy set theory with Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). Fuzzy set theory is employed to reduce uncertainty in distance measure between two tuples at the k ^th continuous feature ( | ( x_o(k) - x_i(k) | ) \left( {\left| {\left( {{x_o}(k) - {x_i}(k)} \right.} \right|} \right) .GRA is a problem solving method that is used to assess the similarity between two tuples with M features. Since some of these features are not necessary to be continuous and may have nominal and ordinal scale type, aggregating different forms of similarity measures will increase uncertainty in the similarity degree. Thus the GRA is mainly used to reduce uncertainty in the distance measure between two software projects for both continuous and categorical features. Both techniques are suitable when relationship between effort and other effort drivers is complex. Experimental results showed that using integration of GRA with FL produced credible estimates when compared with the results obtained using Case-Based Reasoning, Multiple Linear Regression and Artificial Neural Networks methods.     

Parameter sensitivity study of the Nelder-Mead Simplex Method

This paper presents a parameter sensitivity study of the Nelder-Mead Simplex Method for unconstrained optimization. Nelder-Mead Simplex Method is very easy to implement in practice, because it does not require gradient computation; however, it is very sensitive to the choice of initial points selected. Fan-Zahara conducted a sensitivity study using a select set of test cases and suggested the best values for the parameters based on the highest percentage rate of successful minimization. Begambre-Laier used a strategy to control the Particle Swarm Optimization parameters based on the Nelder Mead Simplex Method in identifying structural damage. The main purpose of the paper is to extend their parameter sensitivity study to better understand the parameter’s behavior. The comprehensive parameter sensitivity study was conducted on seven test functions: B2, Beale, Booth, Wood, Rastrigin, Rosenbrock and Sphere Functions to search for common patterns and relationships each parameter has in producing the optimum solution. The results show important relations of the Nelder-Mead Simplex parameters: reflection, expansion, contraction, and Simplex size and how they impact the optimum solutions. This study is crucial, because better understanding of the parameters behavior can motivate current and future research using Nelder-Mead Simplex in creating an intelligent algorithm, which can be more effective, efficient, and save computational time.     

Psychosocial causes and consequences of pathological gaming

Pathological use of computer and video games has been associated with indicators of psychosocial well-being, such as loneliness, low self-esteem, low social competence, and low life satisfaction. However, few studies have decisively demonstrated whether these indicators of psychosocial well-being are causes or consequences of pathological gaming. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a two-wave panel study among 851 Dutch adolescents (543 gamers). Causal relations were analyzed using autoregressive structural equation models. These analyses indicated that social competence, self-esteem, and loneliness were significant predictors of pathological gaming six months later. Thus, lower psychosocial well-being can be considered an antecedent of pathological gaming among adolescent gamers. Our analyses further indicated that loneliness was also a consequence of pathological gaming. This suggests that displacement of real-world social interaction resulting from pathological use of video games may deteriorate existing relationships, which could explain the increase in adolescent gamers’ feelings of loneliness.     

Variations and Commonalities in Processes of Collaboration: The Need for Multi-Site Workplace Studies

Workplace studies have made a major contribution to the field of CSCW, drawing attention to subtle practices that enable effective collaboration. However, workplace studies typically focus on a single setting, making it difficult to assess the generalisability of the findings. Through a multi-site workplace study, we explore a specific collaborative process, that of the handover which occurs when a patient is transferred from one hospital or ward to another. The study demonstrates that the term ??handover?? captures a variety of collaborative practices that vary in both their form and content, reflecting aspects of the setting in which they occur. Multi-site workplace studies are shown to be essential for CSCW, not only generating findings that have relevance beyond a single setting but also focusing attention on aspects of work practice that may otherwise go unnoticed.     

Coherency Hub Design for Multisocket Sun Servers with CoolThreads Technology

CoHub, a coherency hub ASIC, provides a cost-effective way to extend a glueless two-node chip-multithreading system to a four-node system without changes to the processor. The four-node, 256-thread system achieves near-linear scaling of performance with thread count on transaction-processing workloads. Time-to-market pressure, 800-MHz operation, and a six-stage pipeline were among the constraints that shaped CoHub's design.     

Efficient model checking for LTL with partial order snapshots

Certain behavioral properties of distributed systems are difficult to express in interleaving semantics, whereas they are naturally expressed in terms of partial orders of events or, equivalently, Mazurkiewicz traces. Two examples of such properties are serializability of a database and global snapshots of concurrent systems. Recently, a modest extension for LTL by an operator that expresses snapshots, has been proposed. It combines the ease of linear (interleaving) specification with this useful partial order concept. The new construct allows one to assert that a global snapshot appeared in the past, perhaps not in the observed execution sequence, but possibly in an equivalent one.     

Chosen postures during specific sitting activities

This research study analysed the interaction between people's postures and activities while in semi-public/leisure situations and during transportation (journey by train). In addition, the use of small electronic devices received particular emphasis. Video recordings in German trains and photographs in Dutch semi-public spaces were analysed using a variation of Branton and Grayson's (An evaluation of train seats by observation of sitting behaviour. Ergonomics, 10 (1), (1967), 35-51) postural targeting forms and photos. The analysis suggests a significant relationship between most activities and the position of the head, trunk and arms during transportation situations. The relationship during public situations is less straightforward. Watching, talking/discussing and reading were the most observed activities for the transportation and leisure situations combined. Surprisingly, differences in head, trunk, arm and leg postures were not significant when using small electronic devices. Important issues not considered in this study include the duration of the activities, the gender and age of observed subjects and the influence of the time of day. These are interesting issues to consider and include for future research. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: This study shows what activities people choose to carry out and their related postures when not forced to a specific task (e.g. driving). The results of this study can be used for designing comfortable seating in the transportation industry (car passenger, train, bus and aircraft seats) and semi-public/leisure spaces.