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In this article, the author advocates for the use of causal graphs to modernize the field of factor investing and set it on a logically coherent foundation. To do this, first he introduces the concepts of association and causation. Second, he explains the use of causal graphs and the real (causal) meaning of the ceteris paribus assumption that is so popular among economists. Third, he explains how causal graphs help us estimate causal effects in observational (nonexperimental) studies. Fourth, he illustrates all of the earlier concepts with Monte Carlo experiments. He concludes that the field of factor investing must embrace causal graphs in order to wake up from its associational slumber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is by now almost accepted as a stylized fact that offering deal promotion (such as via Groupon or LivingSocial) deteriorates local merchants’ online reputations (e.g., the average of Yelp review ratings). However, in this paper we show that the stylized fact is not true in certain circumstances. We theorize that the valence and volume of prior reviews can play an important moderating role in the effect of deal promotion. Empirically, we show that restaurants with a relatively low prior average rating and a relatively small review volume have improved their online reputations by offering Groupon promotion. The proportion of such restaurants is substantial. The findings are robust to multiple identification strategies and econometric specifications. The results underscore the substantial heterogeneity in the effect of deal promotion on local merchants’ online reputations. Merchants need to understand the moderating role of prior reviews (e.g., the valence and volume of prior reviews) and design appropriate strategies to maximize the returns from offering deal promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We make use of a large sample of transaction-level institutional trading data to test an extended version of Brennan and Hughes’ (1991) information production theory of stock splits. We compare brokerage commissions paid by institutional investors before and after a split, assess the private information held by them, and relate the informativeness of their trading to brokerage commissions paid. We show that institutions make abnormal profits net of brokerage commissions by trading in splitting stocks. We also show that the information asymmetry faced by firms goes down after stock splits. Overall, our empirical results support the information production theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a commentary by the Permanent Editorial Board (PEB) for the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), particularly on the issue of consignments. Also cited are the impact of legal consignment rules on the rights of consignors and other creditors of the consignee, and the law on bailment that depends on the limited purpose of the goods provided to the consignee.

Background: Vitamin A deficiency is known for its adverse health consequences, such as blindness, growth retardation and death. To curb the problem, Ethiopia has implemented various public health measures although little has been done to examine the deficiency among pregnant and lactating women. As a result, this study assessed the prevalence of Vitamin A deficiency and associated factors among pregnant and lactating women in Lay Armachiho district, northwest Ethiopia.Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on pregnant and lactating women in Lay Arimachiho district, northwest Ethiopia, using the multistage systematic sampling technique to select participants. The binary logistic regression model was fitted to test the effect of exposure variables, and the Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with a 95% Confidence Interval (CI) and p-value < 0.05 were computed to identify the significance and the strength of the associations of variables with Vitamin A deficiency.Results: The study revealed that 13.7% of the pregnant and lactating women had night blindness and 0.4% had also Bitot's Spot. Over 35 years of age of mothers (AOR = 2.74; 95%CI: 1.15,7.43), less than USD 22.7 household monthly income (AOR = 8.9; 95%CI: 4.54,21.73), and poor hand washing practices after toilets (AOR = 8.87; 95% CI: 4.43,18.68) were positively associated with VAD, while mothers' access to the media (AOR = 0.20; 95%CI:0.07, 0.59), formal education (AOR = 0.09; 95% CI: 0.03, 0.41), over 18 years of age at first marriage (AOR = 0.19; 95%CI: 0.08,0.36), and no fasting (AOR = 0.14; 95%CI: 0.04,0.46) were negatively associated.Conclusions: Maternal Vitamin A deficiency was the major public health problem in Lay Armachiho district. Over 35 years of age of mothers, less than USD 22.7 household monthly income and poor hand washing practices after toilets were high risks for VAD, while mothers' access to the media, formal education, over 18 years at first marriage, and no fasting were low risks. Therefore, community awareness about the risk of early marriage, poor hand hygiene practices after toilets, and fasting during pregnancy and lactating period were essential. Organizations working on maternal health need to focus on mothers with low incomes in order to reduce their deficiency in Vitamin A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dating back more than a century, companies have used incentives such as commissions and bonuses to motivate and direct the activities of salespeople. Today, sales force incentives comprise a large portion of sales force pay (approximately 40 percent on average for U.S. companies), almost all of which is linked to each individual salesperson's short-term performance using metrics such as quarterly sales. Yet as selling becomes increasingly complex, motivating the right sales force behaviors using these traditional large short-term individual (LSTI) incentives becomes more challenging. Based on observation of various sales organizations, we suggest two propositions about the use of LSTI incentives in sales forces today. First, these incentives can create undesired consequences, including organizationally unproductive short-term focus among salespeople that leads to a counterproductive culture and hurts company performance. Second, other sales force effectiveness (SFE) drivers are frequently more powerful than incentives for setting the right tone for the sales force, affecting sales force behaviors, and enhancing performance-especially when products and markets are complex. These propositions suggest that sales leaders should break their addiction to sales force incentives and develop a more balanced approach to motivating and controlling sales force effort using other SFE drivers in addition to LSTI incentives. By organizing a research agenda around a holistic Sales Force System framework, researchers can provide insights on the appropriate role for incentives, thereby helping sales leaders create and maintain more effective sales organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional view of the futures clearinghouse as an insurer that eliminates the need for customers to evaluate default risk is inaccurate. A clearinghouse member default in 1985 confirms that the clearinghouse only guarantees payment from member to member, not from customer to customer or member to customer. Thus, non-defaulting customers are subject to losses as a result of the action of individuals with whom they have no contractual obligations. This study models the behavior of customers choosing a futures commission merchant (FCM) given the current legal position of the clearinghouse. In a single-period model with symmetric information, customers can eliminate their exposure to defaults of other customers or of their FCM only by choosing to trade through "boutique" (undiversified) FCMs. In practice, monitoring and rebalancing costs may impede the attainment of zero default risk. However, FCM diversification remains an important factor in customer choice of an FCM. When setting capital requirements, clearinghouses and government regulators need to consider the implications of diversification for both customer and market protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study has estimated general cost functions for a broad spectrum of institutional transactions. The goodness of fit and computational simplicity of the cost functions make them suitable for inclusion in empirical tests of security pricing and portfolio formation. The estimated functions provided a reasonable replacement for stated standard rates in the decentralized brokerage industry. Clearly, commission charges declined significantly and substantially in May 1975, when negotiated rates became the pervasive pricing method. The expected cost of transactions in the $10,000 to $300,000 range declined by 17 to 34 percent, and greater percentage cost reductions were given to small rather than to large transactions. The cost structure shifted downward, and economies of scale declined. Based on the three months investigated, the cost function shifted immediately in May, and little, if any, change occurred in June. We noted, also, increasing scale economies with respect to the total trading volume of each trust department during the quarter. The larger trust departments were negotiating lower commission rates overall and receiving greater discounts in June than in April and May. A need for further research relating commission costs to security characteristics and brokerage services was indicated and would provide cost functions for specialized investment topics, such as trading strategies and industry structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What factors account for the wide variation in performance within a salesforce. and what is the relative importance of these factors? The authors attempt to answer that question by first developing a framework that identifies the major constructs to be included in a model of territory response, and then testing the model in three different corporate settings. The empirical results provide a basis for useful generalizations about the importance of territory characteristics, span of control, and other factors in explaining the variability in salesperson performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's view on the economic and technical factors which will determine the feasibility of using atomic energy as a source of power by the Division of Reactor Development of the Atomic Energy Commission. According to him, the important point of the problem regarding the technical failures is that our huge national laboratories have been preoccupied since 1945. Through it, much program have been made including specific reactor projects, material testing, ship propulsion reactor and experimental breeder reactor. Most of the reators were officially authorized for construction, the designers in turn have successfully avoided gross troubles of the type which might be uncovered early in a construction program.

Do most sales managers try to maximize sales volume to the detriment of profits? The authors do not think so. Methods are proposed For shifting incentives from sales volume to profits through better utilization of data available from electronic data processing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the consumer shop in the Soviet Union? What kind of stores are there in Russia? The following article describes the Soviet retail network and the pattern of merchandising. It also examines some new if not "revolutionary" innovations in trade and distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author maintains that the role of the middleman is obscured by oversimplified treatment in marketing literature and Census data. In this article he examines channel-building from the standpoint of the middleman's relative freedom to make choices, while serving as a purchasing agent for his customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis of price discrimination and seeks to address its purpose and underlying factors. Doctors and lawyers are known to practice personal discrimination in that they charge different prices based on a person's income or personal condition. A pricing method based on earning power is noted; it involves commission-type rates paid to the seller, which depend on the productivity, popularity or circulation of a product. An example of this is newspaper cartoon authors, who are paid in proportion with the newspaper's market size. Bargaining power is described as a method by which buyers or sellers adjust their prices depending on the demand or supply for an item.

A sales compensation plan paying equal commission rants on the gross margins of the products in a salesman's line is shown to be optimal. Under such a plan, a salesman trying to maximize his commissions simultaneously maximizes his contribution to company profits. The plan can also handle problems such as loss leaders and capacity constraints with minor modifications. The plan appears operational and may help simplify formal quota and control systems now needed under other compensation programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financing of public infrastructure investment through public-private partnerships faces daunting challenges related to the success of implementation of public infrastructure investment. There are multi-dimensional competing factors which inhibit the short and long-term implementation of PPPs, some of them may result to failure of implementation. The implementation of PPPs requires a set of success factors and its positive result is not automatic. This paper offers an overview of challlenges facing the implementation of PPPs and lists the most important success factors which increase the chance for successful implementation of PPPs. This paper further explores the range and ranking of the most important successful factors required for the realization of PPPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If until 1989, trading goods through consignment agreement was rarely used, the structural changes in the economy have imposed a broad application of the agreement in trade in post-revolutionary period. The consignment agreement has the following legal characteristics: main agreement, synallagmatic, for good and valuable consideration, intuitu personae, commutative, consensual, with no transfer of property and it is a named agreement. The conclusion of this agreement gives rise to obligations on the consignor and consignee. On the other hand, the execution of the consignment agreement gives rise to legal effects in relations between the consignee and third parties (buyers). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of lean production has been documented in detail by production and operations management specialists world-wide [B. B. Flynn, S. Sakakibara, R. G. Schroeder, K. A. Bates and E. J. Flynn, Empirical research methods in operations management, Journal of Operations Management 9(2) (1990) 250-284]. Theoretically, on the other hand, there has been little research that define and quantify what it means to be a lean manufacturer. A typological definition of what it means to be lean has in part been resolved by a model initially developed by Shah and Ward [Defining and developing measures of lean production, Journal of Operations Management 25(4) (2007) 785-805]. This definition was used to determine the underlying concepts of lean production in small to medium size manufacturers (SMMs). While most of the factors found in the Shah and Ward [Defining and developing measures of lean production, Journal of Operations Management 25(4) (2007) 785-805] study remained valid, the model developed for SMMs displayed some new factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A principal can make an investment anticipating a repeated relationship with an agent, but the agent may appropriate the returns through ex post bargaining. I study how this holdup problem and efficiency depend on the contracting environment. When investment returns are observable, informal contracts ex post can be more efficient than formal contracts, as they induce higher investment ex ante: the principal invests not only to generate direct returns, but also to improve relational incentives. Unobservability of returns increases the principal's ability to appropriate the returns but reduces her ability to improve incentives. The optimal information structure depends on bargaining power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patterns with pleasing structure are common in art, video games, and virtual worlds. We describe a method for synthesizing new patterns of tiles on a regular grid that are similar in appearance to a set of example patterns. Exemplars are used both to specify valid tile arrangements and to emphasize multi-tile structures. We model a pattern as a probabilistic graphical model called a factor graph. Factors represent the hard logical constraints between tiles, the soft statistical relationships that determine style, and the local dependencies between tiles at neighboring sites. We describe a simple method for learning factor functions from a small exemplar. We then synthesize new patterns through a stochastic search method that is inspired by MC-SAT. Efficient synthesis is challenging because of the combination of hard and soft constraints. Our synthesis algorithm, called BlockSS, scales linearly with the number of tiles and the hardness of the problem. We use our technique to model building facades, cities, and decorative patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If Canada's Competition Bureau gets its way, there will be greater competition in the residential real estate brokerage business, commission rates will fall and the public will have enhanced access to the Multiple Listing Service. To this end, the Bureau announced on 8 February 2010 that a notice of application would be filed with the Competition Tribunal challenging the way the Canadian Real Estate Association conducts business. The association filed its response six weeks later. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this action, it is safe to say that the face of Canadian residential real estate brokerage services will never be the same. Commonwealth Law Bulletin editorial advisory board member Gavin Murphy explains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the implications of the rules of Commissioning and the Copyright Act in Western Australia. It challenges the Parliament's position and advocacy in expanding the rules that cover the subject matter equally to simplify the law. It argues that the rules in the Copyright Act are uncertain and should be amended to have uniformity in its legislative approach.

This article examines the role of fortifications, garrisons, and militia service in the English East India Company's early settlements in Asia and the Atlantic. Affecting everything from the physical space of such a settlement to the status and rights of its inhabitants, the institutions and ideologies of a variety of forms of military service revealed the degree to which Company leadership had early on come to understand their settlements in Asia not as mere trading factories, but as colonial plantations, and their role as a government in Asia. Even if their lofty ambitions rarely met expectations, the Company sought within them to cultivate law, jurisdiction, and a robust civic life that could in turn ensure an active, obedient, and virtuous body of subjects and, in a sense, citizens. The attitudes toward and policies concerning soldiering also revealed the degree to which the Company's seventeenth-century regime, so often treated as unique amongst English overseas ventures and Europeans in Asia, in fact drew and innovated upon models of governance across Europe, the Atlantic, and Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new variant of the one-to-many-to-one single vehicle pickup and delivery problems (SVPDP) that incorporates the handling cost incurred when rearranging the load at the customer locations. The simultaneous optimization of routing and handling costs is difficult, and the resulting loading patterns are hard to implement in practice. However, this option makes economical sense in contexts where the routing cost dominates the handling cost. We have proposed some simplified policies applicable to such contexts. The first is a two-phase heuristic in which the tour having minimum routing cost is initially determined by optimally solving an SVPDP, and the optimal handling policy is then determined for that tour. In addition, branch-and-cut algorithms based on integer linear programming formulations are proposed, in which routing and handling decisions are simultaneously optimized, but the handling decisions are restricted to three simplified policies. The formulations are strengthened by means of problem specific valid inequalities. The proposed methods have been extensively tested on instances involving up to 25 customers and hundreds of items. Our results show the impact of the handling aspect on the customer sequencing and indicate that the simplified handling policies favorably compare with the optimal one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the causes and impact of the rise in the number of Palestinian-Arab Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Israel in the last two decades. It provides a multi-level model that combines economic, political and cultural factors to explain the shifts in Palestinian-Arab political mobilization in Israel and as a result to the rise of a complex network of Arab NGOs. The paper demonstrates the way in which the civil institutions and their intensive involvement in public social affairs generate social capital that has internal as well as external political impact. Arab civil society institutions, which operate mainly separately from civil institutions of the Jewish majority, assist in the empowerment and the development of Arab society. They provide services in different fields, such as education, health, and planning. They also advocate and lobby for the rights of the Arab citizens inside Israel and internationally. Arab civil society institutions also provide information necessary for political mobilization, identity formation, and cultural preservation. In this framework the paper claims that they play a counter-hegemonic role vis-à-vis the Israeli state. However, the paper also claims that the broad advocacy and lobbying activity of Arab civil institutions did not manage to fully democratize Israeli policies towards Arab society, demonstrating the centrality of state identity and power structure when it comes to democratization processes. On a different level, the paper reveals that, although the Palestinian-Arab NGOs network has managed to lead to a liberalization process within Arab society, this process is partial and selective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of the last twenty-five years, Africa has witnessed an astounding growth in the number and influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in general, and more recently of African NGOs in particular. Initially, the literature on this was dominated by the concerns of the policy-making and NGO communities, drawing on liberal pluralist theory. Lately, an independent, critical literature has developed based on substantial empirical research. Its findings make for uncomfortable reading. They document the essential lack of autonomy of local non-state actors and their very close relationship to Northern governments. This essay argues that the position of NGOs must be theorized within the wider context of the global political economy of the continent. With this in mind, it investigates the rationale for using a comprador perspective to understand the contemporary role of African NGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Summary: In 2003, the British Government introduced a bursary to support and attract more recruits to social work. This study is based on 497 questionnaires completed by prospective students to one social work undergraduate programme over a four-year period, from 2002 to 2006. The first aim of this study was to find out the extent of participants' knowledge of the social work bursary, in order to determine whether this had been a successful strategy to attract greater numbers of people to train as social workers. The second aim was to identify the factors that attracted them to train as social workers. • Findings: Only 52% of the respondents had been aware of the bursary and, significantly, only 3% indicated that this had definitely influenced their choice of career. Prospective students' knowledge of the bursary has not increased since its introduction and the findings suggest that other factors act as primary incentives and motivate students to apply for social work. • Applications: It is important to consider the factors that motivate students to train as social workers in order to better inform recruitment policies and ensure that the profession attracts people who are representative of the diverse population of England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maternal health services have a potentially critical role in the improvement of reproductive health. The use of health services is related to the availability, quality and cost of the services, as well as to social structure, health beliefs and the personal characteristics of the users. The present paper examined the factors that influence the use of maternal health services for some selected pregnancy-related complications (e.g. prolonged labour, excessive bleeding, high fever/discharge and convulsions) in Bangladesh by using data from the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey, 1999–2000. It was found that younger mothers were significantly less likely to seek professional healthcare at the time of birth. The odds for rural women seeking healthcare services from a doctor, nurse and/or midwife were half those of urban women. The strong influence of the mothers’ education and parity on the utilisation of healthcare services is consistent with findings from other studies. The possession of assets emerged as an important predictor of seeking care from health professionals at the time of birth. Another factor, i.e. a husband's concern about pregnancy complications, showed a significant and positive impact on the utilisation of healthcare services, which is very important for rural women when they are dependent on their spouses. It was observed that the respondents living in urban areas, who had higher levels of education and lower parity, and more assets (used as a proxy for income), visited trained healthcare providers more often and were more likely to use healthcare facilities provided by trained personnel at the time of delivery. This is a reflection of the fact that, irrespective of their needs, only people from higher economic or educational groups can afford to seek healthcare from trained personnel in Bangladesh. In other words, predisposing and enabling factors appear to have a strong association with women's healthcare utilisation during pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a channel relationship in which manufacturer(s) use independent sales representatives (rep firms), which employ salespeople to do the actual selling. We show that commission-only payments by manufacturers to rep firms lead to suboptimal outcomes for the manufacturer relative to those obtained under a vertically integrated channel. From the manufacturer's standpoint, these inefficiencies can be ameliorated through the use of sales incentives given to the rep firm's salespeople directly by the manufacturer (called "spiffs"). In a monopolistic environment, spiffs are shown to improve the manufacturer's profits in the face of contractual restrictions on the channel members' ability to set separate commission rates by product. For certain types of restrictions, spiffs may generate manufacturer outcomes close to the fully coordinated ones achieved under vertical integration even when compensating the rep firm through commission-only contracts. In a competitive environment, spiffs are shown to be used by a powerful manufacturer that shares a rep firm's sales efforts with the product of a weaker manufacturer (i.e., in the case of "common agency"). In this case, spiffs are used as a strategy to deter the weaker manufacturer from challenging the stronger manufacturer for the salesforce's valuable selling effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how commissions influence trading behavior by analyzing a unique data set of the equity trades of both individual and institutional active traders. Individual traders pay higher trading costs than institutional traders. As a result, they engage in more risky trading behaviors in order to cover these costs. Individual traders also trade significantly less because of their higher cost of trading. Individual traders tend to trade higher-priced stocks, hold their trades longer, and they experience much larger price swings than institutional traders. This leads individual traders to realize more dramatic gains and losses on their round-trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]