Interdependent Production Research Articles

Modeling the Effects of Drought in Urban Economies Using Regional Input-Output Analysis

Aim: This research examines the economic impacts of drought severity and duration to interdependent product ion sectors in an urban catchment. Methodology: We developed a dynamic water input - output model extension to analyze the drought vulnerability and resilience of economic sectors in an urban region. The model utilizes the North American Industry Classificat ion System (NAICS), which encompasses 65 economic sectors in our regional analysis. The model is applied to a case study of the United States (US) National Capital Region, a predominantly urban region that is considered one of the major economic drivers of the US. Results: Simulation results identify the critical economic sectors that experience the highest inoperability and economic losses as a result of water reduction schemes implemented during drought events. In the two scenarios studied (drought warnin g and drought emergency), sectors exhibit disproportionate levels of resilience and sensitivity to the magnitude and duration of water reduction. In each case, the economic loss and inoperability rankings of critical sectors differ due to differences in th e quantity and value of the sectors’ production outputs. Conclusion: Observed data trends provide valuable insights for decision makers in formulating drought preparedness policies, water conservation programs , and short - term responses aimed to reduce wate r consumption in cases of emergency. The dynamic water reallocation I - O model developed in this study can be applied to other drought - prone regions and be used to generate insights on the economic consequences of drought, ecosystem thresholds, and water re allocation

Cross-border Interdependence of Vertically Related Industries and Welfare Implications

Abstract We examine the effects of the cross-border interdependence of vertically related industries on trade policies and welfare of related countries. With the rapid trends of globalization of value-adding chains of multinational firms, fragmentation of the production process is a wide spread phenomenon of corporate strategies. This paper demonstrate that as the cross-border interdependency of vertically related industries is deepened, protective trade policies are replaced by the pro-trade policies based on an oligopoly model where each representative firm competes over vertically interdependent products. In addition, when the market power of the upstream firm is higher, the tariffs imposed on the intermediate goods are lowered. Although welfare implications of cross-border interdependence of the vertically related industries are affected by the relative technology structures of the upstream firms and the downstream firm of competing economies, a firm with technological advantage benefits more from the deepened cross-border interdependence with increased competition due to the higher homogeneity of the final products.

Knowledge generation about care-giving in the UK: a critical review of research paradigms.

While discourse about care and caring is well developed in the UK, the nature of knowledge generation about care and the research paradigms that underpin it have been subjected to limited critical reflection and analysis. An overarching synthesis of evidence - intended to promote debate and facilitate new understandings - identifies two largely separate bodies of carer-related research. The first body of work - referred to as Gathering and Evaluating - provides evidence of the extent of care-giving, who provides care to whom and with what impact; it also focuses on evaluating policy and service efficacy. This type of research tends to dominate public perception about caring, influences the type and extent of policy and support for carers and attracts funding from policy and health-related sources. However, it also tends to be conceptually and theoretically narrow, has limited engagement with carers' perspectives and adopts an atomistic purview on the care-giving landscape. The second body of work - Conceptualising and Theorising - explores the conceptual and experiential nature of care and aims to extend thinking and theory about caring. It is concerned with promoting understanding of care as an integral part of human relationships, embedded in the life course, and a product of interdependence and reciprocity. This work conceptualises care as both an activity and a disposition and foregrounds the development of an 'ethic of care', thereby providing a perspective within which to recognise both the challenges care-giving may present and the significance of care as a normative activity. It tends to be funded from social science sources and, while strong in capturing carers' experiences, has limited policy and service-related purchase. Much could be gained for citizens, carers and families, and the generation of knowledge advanced, if the two bodies of research were integrated to a greater degree.

Obesity emergence in the Pacific islands: why understanding colonial history and social change is important.

Between 1980 and 2008, two Pacific island nations - Nauru and the Cook Islands - experienced the fastest rates of increasing BMI in the world. Rates were over four times higher than the mean global BMI increase. The aim of the present paper is to examine why these populations have been so prone to obesity increases in recent times. Three explanatory frames that apply to both countries are presented: (i) geographic isolation and genetic predisposition; (ii) small population and low food production capacity; and (iii) social change under colonial influence. These are compared with social changes documented by anthropologists during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Nauru and the Cook Islands. While islands are isolated, islanders are interconnected. Similarly, islands are small, but land use is socially determined. While obesity affects individuals, islanders are interdependent. New social values, which were rapidly propagated through institutions such as the colonial system of education and the cash economy, are today reflected in all aspects of islander life, including diet. Such historical social changes may predispose societies to obesity. Colonial processes may have put in place the conditions for subsequent rapidly escalating obesity. Of the three frameworks discussed, social change under colonial influence is not immutable to further change in the future and could take place rapidly. In theorising obesity emergence in the Pacific islands, there is a need to incorporate the idea of obesity being a product of interdependence and interconnectedness, rather than independence and individual choice.

Dynamic pricing policies for interdependent perishable products or services using reinforcement learning

Many businesses offer multiple products or services that are interdependent, in which the demand for one is often affected by the prices of others. This article considers a revenue management problem of multiple interdependent products, in which dynamically adjusted over a finite sales horizon to maximize expected revenue, given an initial inventory for each product. The main contribution of this article is to use reinforcement learning to model the optimal pricing of perishable interdependent products when demand is stochastic and its functional form unknown. We show that reinforcement learning can be used to price interdependent products. Moreover, we analyze the performance of the Q-learning with eligibility traces algorithm under different conditions. We illustrate our analysis with the pricing of services.

Interdependent product cycles for globally sourced intermediates

We analyze a firm that produces a final good from multiple intermediates, each of which can be sourced domestically or from a low-wage country. Offshoring an intermediate is only profitable when it has matured sufficiently and the savings in production cost outweigh the underinvestment due to incomplete contracts abroad. We derive how equilibrium sourcing decisions of different intermediates depend on one another. In particular, we demonstrate that the maturity threshold to offshore additional parts is higher when some other parts are already sourced from the low-wage country. This prediction is robust to an alternative way of modeling the bargaining process, but it only holds if foreign suppliers are held sufficiently close to their reservation wage. If suppliers are able to capture most of the rents, the prediction reverses. Using information on U.S. imports of automotive parts, we illustrate that for most countries the price at which they first export a part tends to be higher for parts that are only exported later, consistent with offshoring becoming gradually more difficult.

Suburbia: social and spatial trends that emerged in Celtic Tiger Ireland.

Long after the roar of the “Celtic Tiger” has become inaudible; its effects remain in the form of ghost estates, incomplete rural development and inadequate service provision across the Irish landscape. This paper will give a brief account of suburban housing development in Ireland as a whole, followed by a detailed discussion of development in a specific Irish case study, Clerihan, Co. Tipperary. Through the analysis of data produced from resident questionnaires, an evaluation and discussion of the key motivations of Clerihan’s “Celtic Tiger” in-migrants shall emerge for the purpose of comparison with international suburban migration incentives. These incentives shall be addressed under four overarching themes; suburbia as an idyllic space and place, suburbia as an exclusive community while maintaining previous social networks, suburbia as a product of social and economic competition, and suburbia as an interdependent product of transport availability.

Product and Production Process Modeling and Configuration

Product configuration systems are an emerging technology that supports companies in deploying mass customization strategies. Such strategies need to cover the management of the whole customizable product cycle. Adding process modeling and configuration features to a product configurator may improve its ability to assist mass customization development. In this paper, we describe a modeling framework, PRODPROC, that allows one to model both a product and its production process. We first introduce our framework by describing how configurable products are modeled. Then, we describe the main features and capabilities offered to model production processes and to link them with the corresponding products models. The configuration task namely, the procedure that, from a configurable object/activity generates a configured product/process is then analyzed. We also outline a possible CSP-based implementation of a configurator. A comparison with some of the existing systems for product configuration and process modeling emphasizes that none of the considered system/tools offers the complete set of features supported by PRODPROC for interdependent product and process modeling/configuration.

Improving the quality of EMI Releases by leveraging the EMI Testing Infrastructure

What is an EMI Release? What is its life cycle? How is its quality assured through a continuous integration and large scale acceptance testing? These are the main questions that this article will answer, by presenting the EMI release management process with emphasis on the role played by the Testing Infrastructure in improving the quality of the middleware provided by the project. The European Middleware Initiative (EMI) is a close collaboration of four major European technology providers: ARC, gLite, UNICORE and dCache. Its main objective is to deliver a consolidated set of components for deployment in EGI (as part of the Unified Middleware Distribution, UMD), PRACE and other DCIs. The harmonized set of EMI components thus enables the interoperability and integration between Grids. EMI aims at creating an effective environment that satisfies the requirements of the scientific communities relying on it. The EMI distribution is organized in periodic major releases whose development and maintenance follow a 5-phase yearly cycle: i) requirements collection and analysis; ii) development and test planning; iii) software development, testing and certification; iv) release certification and validation and v) release and maintenance. In this article we present in detail the implementation of operational and infrastructural resources supporting the certification and validation phase of the release. The main goal of this phase is to harmonize into a single release the strongly inter-dependent products coming from various development teams through parallel certification paths. To achieve this goal the continuous integration and large scale acceptance testing performed on the EMI Testing Infrastructure plays a key role. The purpose of this infrastructure is to provide a system where both the production and the release candidate product versions are deployed. On this system inter-component testing by different product team testers can concurrently take place. The Testing Infrastructure is also continuously monitored through Nagios and exposed both to automatic testing and to usage by volunteer end-users. Furthermore the infrastructure size is increased with resources made available by volunteer end-users that are interested in implementing production-like deployments or specific test scenarios.

Improving the quality of EMI Releases by leveraging the EMI Testing Infrastructure

What is an EMI Release? What is its life cycle? How is its quality assured through a continuous integration and large scale acceptance testing? These are the main questions that this article will answer, by presenting the EMI release management process with emphasis on the role played by the Testing Infrastructure in improving the quality of the middleware provided by the project. The European Middleware Initiative (EMI) is a close collaboration of four major European technology providers: ARC, gLite, UNICORE and dCache. Its main objective is to deliver a consolidated set of components for deployment in EGI (as part of the Unified Middleware Distribution, UMD), PRACE and other DCIs. The harmonized set of EMI components thus enables the interoperability and integration between Grids. EMI aims at creating an effective environment that satisfies the requirements of the scientific communities relying on it. The EMI distribution is organized in periodic major releases whose development and maintenance follow a 5-phase yearly cycle: i) requirements collection and analysis; ii) development and test planning; iii) software development, testing and certification; iv) release certification and validation and v) release and maintenance. In this article we present in detail the implementation of operational and infrastructural resources supporting the certification and validation phase of the release. The main goal of this phase is to harmonize into a single release the strongly inter-dependent products coming from various development teams through parallel certification paths. To achieve this goal the continuous integration and large scale acceptance testing performed on the EMI Testing Infrastructure plays a key role. The purpose of this infrastructure is to provide a system where both the production and the release candidate product versions are deployed. On this system inter-component testing by different product team testers can concurrently take place. The Testing Infrastructure is also continuously monitored through Nagios and exposed both to automatic testing and to usage by volunteer end-users. Furthermore the infrastructure size is increased with resources made available by volunteer end-users that are interested in implementing production-like deployments or specific test scenarios.

Nursing Science and Public Health

This column highlights the unique relationship of nursing science and public health in the broader context of the discipline of nursing and healthcare. An integrated framework is used to illustrate that nursing knowledge is the product of interaction and interdependence of four domains -the discipline and science of nursing, the philosophy of nursing, the nursing profession, and nursing practice. In the context of the integrated framework, knowledge specific to public health nursing is shown to inform the discipline of nursing and other health disciplines. Ongoing challenges related to clarifying and describing unique contributions to nursing and public health are explored. In addition, under utilization of theoretical and conceptual nursing knowledge from public health nursing for the advancement nursing science in education, practice, and research is addressed.

Cultural Tourism Implementation Network: From Aclassic British Seaside Experience

Strategic policy has to be implemented within complex operating environments where organisations have to perform within an inter-dependent production process in a dynamic mix of competition and cooperation. This study was designed in the typical case of the British seaside to further the understanding of control and communication mechanisms and collaboration in policy implementation networks and focus upon problems of structural fragmentation in these complex policy environments.

Supply Chains and Segment Profitability: How Input Pricing Creates a Latent Cross-Segment Subsidy

ABSTRACT: Recent years have seen an increased emphasis on developing more precise accounting measures of market- and customer-level profitability. By their very nature, such segment profitability measures may unwittingly neglect complementarities. Such complementarities have been widely recognized on the demand side due to brand recognition, predatory pricing, or interdependent products. We develop a model showing that important supply-side complementarities can also be prevalent. In particular, when a firm relies on a self-interested supplier for inputs used across multiple segments, the wholesale price it pays depends on the average profitability of its segments. Taking such interaction between upstream pricing and the firm’s downstream reach into account, the model shows that: (1) segment profit calculations can understate or overstate the value added by the segment depending on the segment’s relative contribution margin, and (2) the firm sometimes benefits from devoting resources to less profitable segments and perhaps even from serving seemingly unprofitable markets and/or customers.

Planting Hybrids, Keeping Landraces: Agricultural Modernization and Tradition Among Small-Scale Maize Farmers in Chiapas, Mexico

This paper examines how agricultural modernization and tradition interact among small-scale commercially-oriented maize farmers by studying shifts in area and number of farmers planting hybrids and landraces. Results show substantial yield increases but reductions in production and area planted, associated with widespread hybrid adoption and landrace abandonment. Agricultural government programs have played an important role fostering commercialization and hybrid adoption. Cultural preferences, and possibly an anti-poverty program coupled with women’s empowerment, have fostered landrace retention. Hybrids and landraces have overlapping functions in farmers’ livelihoods influenced by interdependent production and consumption decisions, cultural preferences, and imperfect markets even under agricultural modernization.

Collaborative Implementation Network Structures: Cultural Tourism Implementation in an English Seaside Context

Strategic policy has to be implemented within complex operating environments where organisations have to perform within an inter-dependent production process in a dynamic mix of competition and cooperation. This suggests that network structures need to be in place that allow for both collaboration and competition whilst mitigating against structural fragmentation. The aim of this research was to further the understanding of control and communication mechanisms and collaboration in policy implementation networks and focus upon problems of structural fragmentation in these complex policy environments. This research used a systems approach to develop a methodological framework based on Beer’s Viable System Model, work by Espejo and Social Network Analysis. The research was set in a tourism ‘cluster’ in an English seaside context, which is that part of the Yorkshire coast covered by the Scarborough Borough Council local authority, where a more culturally focussed tourism product was being introduced.

The Determinants of Employee-Involvement Schemes: Private Sector Australian Evidence

Using data from the 1995 wave of the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this article estimates the determinants of four types of group employee-involvement (EI) schemes: autonomous groups, quality circles, joint consultative committees and task forces. The results indicate that EI is associated with employees having longer expected tenure and higher labour force attachment. The authors argue that this is sensible as EI will be more successful in settings of interdependent production, settings in which such employees are at a premium. The results also show that complementary HRM practices, such as formal training and incentive pay, are associated with an increased likelihood of EI. Unionization, size of workplace and the extent of competition are also confirmed as determinants.

Integrating collaborative planning and supply chain optimization for the chemical process industry (I)—methodology

We consider a complex scheduling problem in the chemical process industry involving batch production. The application described comprises a network of production plants with interdependent production schedules, multi-stage production at multi-purpose facilities, and chain production. The paper addresses three distinct aspects: (i) a scheduling solution obtained from a genetic algorithm (GA) based optimizer, (ii) a mechanism for collaborative planning among the involved plants, and (iii) a tool for manual updates and schedule changes. The tailor made optimization algorithm simultaneously considers alternative production paths and facility selection as well as product and resource specific parameters such as batch sizes, and setup and cleanup times. The collaborative planning concept allows all the plants to work simultaneously as partners in a supply chain resulting in higher transparency, greater flexibility, and reduced response time as a whole. The user interface supports monitoring production schedules graphically and provides custom-built utilities for manual changes to the production schedule, investigation of various what-if scenarios, and marketing queries.

An integrated system solution for supply chain optimization in the chemical process industry

This paper considers a complex scheduling problem in the chemical process industry involving batch production. The application described comprises a network of production plants with interdependent production schedules, multi-stage production at multi-purpose facilities, and chain production. The paper addresses three distinct aspects: (i) a scheduling solution obtained from a genetic algorithm based optimizer, (ii) a mechanism for collaborative planning among the involved plants, and (iii) a tool for manual updates and schedule changes. The tailor made optimization algorithm simultaneously considers alternative production paths and facility selection as well as product and resource specific parameters such as batch sizes, and setup and cleanup times. The collaborative planning concept allows all the plants to work simultaneously as partners in a supply chain resulting in higher transparency, greater flexibility, and reduced response time as a whole. The user interface supports monitoring production schedules graphically and provides custom-built utilities for manual changes to the production schedule, investigation of various what-if scenarios, and marketing queries.

Noise induced transitions in some socio‐economic systems

AbstractThe paper proposes the use of some stochastic methods in order to explain the presence of the critical points in macroeconomic time series, starting from the classical linear model input‐output elaborated by W. Leontief. The development of the model (N. Georgescu‐Roegen, 1971) yields the set of the linear differential equations describing the dynamics of a system containing two or more interdependent production processes. In order to describe the nonlinear economic growth, a feed‐back mechanism is introduced, improving in this way the one‐dimensional variant of the model. We study further the influence of the noise on a control parameter and the conditions in which noise induced transitions arise. The economic data illustrating such transition refer to a country evolving to the market economy (Romania), whose evolution proves a lot of instabilities that are interesting to study from physical point of view. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Social instability and redistribution of income

Rational agents can express discontent with a given distribution of income by threatening to disrupt an economy, if such a threat is profitable. This paper describes such circumstances in a two-class model. Social stability constraints define the acceptable set of income distributions, the range of which is determined by the extent to which income-generating abilities are vulnerable to disruption. Opportunities for disruption vary across stages of economic development. There is possibly no stable distribution in a low developed economy, whereas in an advanced economy, characterized by complex and interdependent production, stable distributions exist. This distinction provides a basis for the observed increasing significance of social stabilization by redistributive policy in the course of economic development.