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PurposeThe aim of this exploratory study is to assess the impact of role clarity and concern for the other party's goals on soldiers' negotiations with members of the local population within a combat zone.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the Dual Concerns Model it was hypothesized that soldiers experiencing high concern for the needs of their Iraqi counterparts would engage in: higher levels of problem solving behavior; report greater trust in their counterparts; and reach more mutually satisfying agreements under conditions of role clarity relative to role ambiguity. A total of 42 officers and non‐commissioned officers serving in Iraq participated in the study.FindingsThe results supported the prediction that role clarity moderates the relationship between concern for the other party's needs and various outcomes of the negotiation process.Research limitations/implicationsThe study involved a small convenience sample, cross‐sectional design, and a single source of data for all measures. Nonetheless, the results are consistent with other studies examining the theoretical assumptions of the Dual Concern Model and suggest that role clarity may serve as a useful operationalization of high self‐concern and high resistance to yielding.Originality/valueThe study advances knowledge about soldiers' ability to negotiate mutually satisfying agreements with members of the local population. It points to the need to combine a policy of collaboration with local civilians with the communication of a clear set of overall mission and specific negotiation goals and objectives.

Since 1986 the United States has made considerable efforts to curb illegal immigration. This has resulted in an increase in migration costs for undocumented immigrants. More stringent border enforcement either deters potential illegal immigrants from coming to the U.S., or moves the point of crossing for illegal immigrants from traditional crossing routes to more inhospitable routes. These changes are likely to place a heavier burden on illegal immigrant women as they are more likely to be kidnapped, smuggled, or raped when crossing illegally. If migration costs are not the same for all migrants, higher migrating costs may result in a change in the number and in the composition of immigrants to the United States. In the face of higher migration costs, only immigrants with relatively high expected benefits of migration will choose to migrate. Based on our theoretical model, we test for three empirical results that are associated with a stronger selection of immigrant women from Mexico relative to men as a result of higher migration costs: 1) A decrease in the relative flow of older and highly educated undocumented immigrant women relative to men; 2) A change in the skill composition of immigrant women to men; and 3) An increase in the average earnings of those groups most affected by increased migration costs. Using data from the 1990, 2000 Decennial Census, and from the 2006-2008 American Community Survey we empirically confirm these predictions.

The development of employment and unemployment in regional labour markets is known to spatially interdependent. Global Vector-Autoregressive (GVAR) models generate a link between the local and the surrounding labour markets and thus might be useful when analysing and forecasting employment and unemployment even if they are non-stationary or co-trending. Furthermore, GVARs have the advantage to allow for both strong cross-sectional dependence on ``leader regions' and weak cross-sectional, spatial dependence. For the recent and further development of labour markets the economic situation (described e.g. by business-cycle indicators), politics and environmental impacts (e.g. climate) may be relevant. Information on these impacts can be integrated in addition to the joint development of employment and unemployment and the spatial link in a way that allows on the one hand to carry out economic plausibility checks easily and on the other hand to directly receive measures regarding the statistical properties and the precision of the forecasts. Then, the forecasting accuracy is demonstrated for German regional labour-market data in simulated forecasts at different horizons and for several periods. Business-cycle indicators seem to have no information regarding labour-market prediction, climate indicators little. In contrast, including information about labour-market policies and vacancies, and accounting for the lagged and contemporaneous spatial dependence can improve the forecasts relative to a simple bivariate model.

The research work is partially funded by the Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarship Scheme (STEPS-Malta). This scholarship is partly financed by the European Union - European Social Fund (ESF 1.25). ; Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes achieve good performance, tending towards the Slepian-Wolf bound, when used as channel codes in Distributed Source Coding (DSC). Most LDPC codes found in literature are designed assuming random distribution of transmission errors. However, certain DSC applications can predict the error location within a certain level of accuracy. This feature can be exploited in order to design application specific LDPC codes to enhance the performance of traditional LDPC codes. This paper proposes a novel architecture for asymmetric DSC where the encoder is able to estimate the location of the errors within the side information. It then interleaves the bits having a high probability of error to the beginning of the codeword. The LDPC codes are designed to provide a higher level of protection to the front bits. Simulation results show that correct localization of errors pushes the performance of the system on average 13.3% closer to the Slepian-Wolf bound, compared to the randomly constructed LDPC codes. If the error localization prediction fails, such that the errors are randomly distributed, the performance is still in line with that of the traditional DSC architecture. ; peer-reviewed

Speculation about the future of the North Korean regime has been intense for nearly two decades. In the 1990s, economic crises and famine led to predictions of the Kim regime's imminent downfall. Today analysts highlight impending famine as well as threats to the regime's position brought by eroding information control. Several theories of authoritarian control help to explain how Kim Jong-il and his family have remained in power and how this might change over time. The Kim regime has employed a variety of authoritarian "tools" to protect itself both from popular revolt and from internal coups. Its social policies, reliance on certain ideas and nationalism, and use of force prevent the onset of revolution. Through numerous other tools (elite co-optation, manipulation of foreign governments for financial aid, and the "coupproofing" of domestic institutions), the regime protects itself from coups d'état and elite unrest. This framework not only helps to explain the past resilience of the regime, but it suggests that the regime is not in danger of being unseated by coups or revolution. Yet it also suggests that the regime has not adequately prepared for succession after Kim's death. This analysis has implications for policy planning about the future of the Korean Peninsula, as well as for negotiations with and coercive strategies toward Pyongyang.

Objectives. This article provides an examination of how men and women spend their recreational attendance time and how their behavior differs when they are single and married. The battle of the sexes model and the theory of artistic human capital acquisition from one's spouse both suggest that married individuals will have different patterns of attendance than singles.Methods. Using data from the Performing Arts Research Coalition, we estimate a number of models to examine the differences between male and female attendance at art, professional sports, and popular culture events for those single and married.Results. We find that single males prefer sports, while single females prefer the arts. As predicted by the battle of the sexes model, men are more likely and women less likely to attend art events after marriage. This increase in male attendance is also predicted by human capital models of attendance that argue that the choice of art events is based on acquired tastes that can be influenced by the human capital of one's spouse. The battle of the sexes model, however, also predicts a decline in male and an increase in female attendance at professional sports. We find a small increase in female, but also an increase in male, attendance.Conclusions. The behavior of married and single males and females tends to correspond to the predictions made by the battle of the sexes and human capital models of attendance.

Trabajo presentado al "European Economic Association and Econometric Society 2009 Parallel Meetings" celebrado en Barcelona y al "American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting" celebrado en USA en 2010. ; We present a formal model of intra-party politics to explain candidate selection within parties. We think of parties as heterogeneous groups of individuals who aim to implement a set of policies but who differ in their priorities. When party heterogeneity is too large, parties are in danger of splitting into smaller yet more homogeneous groups. In this context we argue that primaries can have a unifying role if the party elite cannot commit to policy concessions. Our model shows how alignment in the preferred policies of various factions within a party, the relative weight of each of these factions and the electoral system interact to create incentives for the adoption of primary elections. We discuss the existing empirical literature in the light of our theoretical predictions to provide a new, structured perspective on the adoption of primary elections. ; We thank Stephen Ansolabehere, Fernando Aragon, Torun Dewan, Simon Hix, Massimo Morelli, Kenneth Shepsle, James Snyder, participants of the APSA 2010 Annual Meetings and seminar participants at the London School of Economics and Universitat Aut onoma of Barcelona for helpful comments and discussions. Hannes Mueller acknowledges financial support by the Juan de la Cierva programme. ; Peer reviewed

Abstract. In the present work, the role played by vegetation parameters, necessary to the hydrological distributed modeling, is investigated focusing on the correct use of remote sensing products for the evaluation of hydrological losses in the soil water balance. The research was carried out over a medium-sized river basin in Southern Italy, where the vegetation status is characterised through a data-set of multi-temporal NDVI images. The model adopted uses one layer of vegetation whose status is defined by the Leaf Area Index (LAI), which is often obtained from NDVI images. The inherent problem is that the vegetation heterogeneity – including soil disturbances – has a large influence on the spectral bands and so the relation between LAI and NDVI is not unambiguous. We present a rationale for the basin scale calibration of a non-linear NDVI-LAI regression, based on the comparison between NDVI values and literature LAI estimations of the vegetation cover in recognized landscape elements of the study catchment. Adopting a process-based model (DREAM) with a distributed parameterisation, the influence of different NDVI-LAI regression models on main features of water balance predictions is investigated. The results show a significant sensitivity of the hydrological losses and soil water regime to the alternative LAI estimations. These crucially affects the model performances especially in low-flows simulation and in the identification of the intermittent regime.

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate the effect of compositions of managerial/demographic characteristics of the top management team (TMT) on the extent of information technology (IT) adoption in small businesses (SMEs), where such strategic decisions made by TMT have direct and significant influence on all aspects of business operations and its competitive position in a market.Design/methodology/approachBased on the upper echelon theory, the study formulated four hypotheses relating the compositions of TMT characteristics to the extent of IT adoption in different functional areas. Multiple regression analysis was employed to analyze the data.FindingsThe age average and the education average of TMT in small businesses are significant predictors of the extent of IT adoption. However, the group heterogeneity (either gender or ethnicity), contrary to the prediction, has negative impact on the extent of IT adoption.Practical implicationsThe research findings indicate that the age and education composition of managers as current/future top management is critical to facilitate the extent of IT adoption in SMEs.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the body of knowledge in IT adoption by complementing the results of prior research with the findings that the characteristic compositions of TMT affect the extent of IT adoption in SMEs, applying the upper echelon theory to examine issues surrounding IT adoption, and suggesting practical implications that SMEs could compose, educate, and rejuvenate their top management teams to achieve a high extent of IT adoption.

Objective: A novel model of measuring clutter in complex geospatial displays was compared with human ratings of subjective clutter as a measure of convergent validity. The new model is called the color-clustering clutter (C3) model. Background: Clutter is a known problem in displays of complex data and has been shown to affect target search performance. Previous clutter models are discussed and compared with the C3 model. Method: Two experiments were performed. In Experiment 1, participants performed subjective clutter ratings on six classes of information visualizations. Empirical results were used to set two free parameters in the model. In Experiment 2, participants performed subjective clutter ratings on aeronautical charts. Both experiments compared and correlated empirical data to model predictions. Results: The first experiment resulted in a .76 correlation between ratings and C3. The second experiment resulted in a .86 correlation, significantly better than results from a model developed by Rosenholtz et al. Outliers to our correlation suggest further improvements to C3. Conclusions: We suggest that (a) the C3 model is a good predictor of subjective impressions of clutter in geospatial displays, (b) geospatial clutter is a function of color density and saliency (primary C3 components), and (c) pattern analysis techniques could further improve C3. Application: The C3 model could be used to improve the design of electronic geospatial displays by suggesting when a display will be too cluttered for its intended audience.

Globalization has entered a new stage, with new and varying constellations of winners and losers and thus, calls for a new policy paradigm. In contrast to the traditional way of thinking - the welfare state redistributes purchasing power to the disadvantaged to support them in the event of adverse shocks - now workers must be made more adaptable and be encouraged to stabilize themselves if hurt from globalization. This dissertation examines several labour market policies with various incentive models of the labour market, which explain the microeconomic decisions relevant to the transitions in the labour market in terms of the incentives that economic agents face. To fulfil its new role the following three reform policies for the welfare state are analysed: Unemployment accounts, employment subsidies and flexicurity. Finally, a new modelling strategy of two-sided search with frictions and heterogeneities, which is able to account for empirical stylized facts, is proposed for future policy analysis and prediction. ; Die neue Phase der Globalisierung, die immer neue und wechselnde Konstellationen von Gewinnern und Verlierern der Globalisierung hervorbringt, fordern nach einem neuen Politikmuster. Im Gegensatz zum traditionellen Denkansatz - der Wohlfahrtsstaat verteilt Kaufkraft an die benachteiligten um - müssen Arbeitnehmer jetzt anpassungsfähiger werden und deart unterstützt werden, dass sie sich selbst stabilisiern können, wenn sie zu Globalisierungsverlierern werden. Diese Dissertation behandeln verschiedene Arbeitsmarktpolitiken mit mehreren anreizbasierten Arbeitsmarktmodellen, die die mikroökonomischen Entscheidungen der Agenten in Bezug auf ihre Übergänge zwischen Abreitsmarktzuständen durch die Beschäftigungsanreize erklären. Es werden drei Reformmaßnahmen analysiert, die der neuen Rolle des Wohlfahrtsstaates gerecht werden: Beschäftigungskonten, Beschäftigungssubventionen und Flexicurity. Abschließend wird ein neuer Modellierungsansatz mit beidseitigem Suchverhalten, Friktionen und Heterogenitäten für zukünftige Politikanalyse und Vorhersage präsentiert, der empirische Fakten replizieren kann.

4th International Symposium on Food Packaging, Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC, NOV 19-21, 2008 ; International audience ; Testing the specific migration limits of all substances intentionally added to polymer material according to European Union (EU) regulation is a tedious and expensive task. Although mathematical modeling offers an interesting alternative, it overestimates significantly the migration in situations, which are strongly conservative due to significant uncertainty in transport properties. In addition, its application is of little use for end-users or enforcement laboratories, which do not have access to the formulation. This paper revises the paradigm of migration modeling by combining modeling with deformulation experiments and iterative modeling in the framework of decision theory. The complete approach is illustrated on polyolefins in contact with 50% ethanol for eight typical migrants, including hindered phenolic antioxidants and low molecular weight surrogates. Results of the national RA 05.22 ACTIA project on the identification of formulation fingerprints and on the prediction of partition coefficients with alcoholic and aqueous simulants were in particular considered. When the true migration was close but still lower than the limit of concern, the proposed compact decision tree, including up to four sources of uncertainty, showed that the chance of demonstrating compliance was about 3:4 in presence of one source of uncertainty, whereas it fell below 2:4 and 1:4 with two and three sources of uncertainty respectively. The recommendations for further sanitary surveys and future developments are discussed in the last section.

Globalization has entered a new stage, with new and varying constellations of winners and losers and thus, calls for a new policy paradigm. In contrast to the traditional way of thinking - the welfare state redistributes purchasing power to the disadvantaged to support them in the event of adverse shocks - now workers must be made more adaptable and be encouraged to stabilize themselves if hurt from globalization. This dissertation examines several labour market policies with various incentive models of the labour market, which explain the microeconomic decisions relevant to the transitions in the labour market in terms of the incentives that economic agents face. To fulfil its new role the following three reform policies for the welfare state are analysed: Unemployment accounts, employment subsidies and flexicurity. Finally, a new modelling strategy of two-sided search with frictions and heterogeneities, which is able to account for empirical stylized facts, is proposed for future policy analysis and prediction. ; Die neue Phase der Globalisierung, die immer neue und wechselnde Konstellationen von Gewinnern und Verlierern der Globalisierung hervorbringt, fordern nach einem neuen Politikmuster. Im Gegensatz zum traditionellen Denkansatz - der Wohlfahrtsstaat verteilt Kaufkraft an die benachteiligten um - müssen Arbeitnehmer jetzt anpassungsfähiger werden und deart unterstützt werden, dass sie sich selbst stabilisiern können, wenn sie zu Globalisierungsverlierern werden. Diese Dissertation behandeln verschiedene Arbeitsmarktpolitiken mit mehreren anreizbasierten Arbeitsmarktmodellen, die die mikroökonomischen Entscheidungen der Agenten in Bezug auf ihre Übergänge zwischen Abreitsmarktzuständen durch die Beschäftigungsanreize erklären. Es werden drei Reformmaßnahmen analysiert, die der neuen Rolle des Wohlfahrtsstaates gerecht werden: Beschäftigungskonten, Beschäftigungssubventionen und Flexicurity. Abschließend wird ein neuer Modellierungsansatz mit beidseitigem Suchverhalten, Friktionen und Heterogenitäten für zukünftige Politikanalyse und Vorhersage präsentiert, der empirische Fakten replizieren kann.

4th International Symposium on Food Packaging, Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC, NOV 19-21, 2008 ; International audience ; Testing the specific migration limits of all substances intentionally added to polymer material according to European Union (EU) regulation is a tedious and expensive task. Although mathematical modeling offers an interesting alternative, it overestimates significantly the migration in situations, which are strongly conservative due to significant uncertainty in transport properties. In addition, its application is of little use for end-users or enforcement laboratories, which do not have access to the formulation. This paper revises the paradigm of migration modeling by combining modeling with deformulation experiments and iterative modeling in the framework of decision theory. The complete approach is illustrated on polyolefins in contact with 50% ethanol for eight typical migrants, including hindered phenolic antioxidants and low molecular weight surrogates. Results of the national RA 05.22 ACTIA project on the identification of formulation fingerprints and on the prediction of partition coefficients with alcoholic and aqueous simulants were in particular considered. When the true migration was close but still lower than the limit of concern, the proposed compact decision tree, including up to four sources of uncertainty, showed that the chance of demonstrating compliance was about 3:4 in presence of one source of uncertainty, whereas it fell below 2:4 and 1:4 with two and three sources of uncertainty respectively. The recommendations for further sanitary surveys and future developments are discussed in the last section.