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Classical numerical techniques are used to incorporate parallel processing in a fast method for solving simultaneous linear equations, Ax = b. The results show a tradeoff of computation time for processors. In the limiting case, general sets of n linear simultaneous equations can be solved in time proportional to a function of n log n.

Self-report questionnaires are the predominant method used in human resource management (HRM) research to assess employees’ work-related psychological constructs (e.g., processes, states, and attributes). However, this method is associated with significant shortcomings, including the introduction of self-serving bias and common method variance when used exclusively. In this chapter, the authors challenge the assumption that individuals themselves are the only accurate source of the self-focused information collected in HRM research. Instead, the authors propose that other-ratings – ratings of a target individual that are provided by a workplace observer, such as a coworker, supervisor, or subordinate – can accurately assess commonly measured work-related psychological constructs. The authors begin by explaining the advantages of other-ratings for HRM research and practice, reviewing the history of other-ratings and how they emerged in the personality and person-perception literature, and outlining how they have been used in HRM research to date. Then, the authors build upon Funder’s (1995) realistic accuracy model to develop a theoretical argument detailing why workplace others should be able to accurately judge how another employee thinks and feels about work. Next, the authors highlight existing evidence in the literature on the accuracy of other-ratings and present the results of a preliminary meta-analysis on the ability of other-ratings to predict self-ratings of work-related psychological constructs. Finally, the authors discuss potential moderators of other-rating accuracy and reflect on a number of practical considerations for researchers looking to use other-ratings in their own work. The authors intend for this chapter to meaningfully contribute to the larger conversation on HRM research methods. Other-ratings are a simple, yet powerful, addition to the methodological toolkit of HRM researchers that can increase flexibility in research design and improve the overall quality of research.

Sports events are tourist attractions and their image components can relate to the destination image concept and structure. This study examined sports event images held by active and passive sports tourists at four marathon races in Germany. Some differences in the perception of event images were found for active and passive sports tourists as well as for different types of destinations. For active sports tourists, emotional, physical and organisational image associations were clustered closer. For passive sports tourists, social and historical image associations were clustered closer. The type of destination elicited different event images among active and passive sports tourists.

William Baumol famously introduced the “cost disease” according to which the relative price of services vis-á-vis manufactured goods keeps rising because of a negative productivity differential between services and manufacturing industries. Empirical evidence strongly supports the predictions of Baumol’s model of “unbalanced growth” as we show in this article. Baumol was convinced that the cost disease need not have fatal consequences for growing economies as they can afford to earmark ever-higher shares of GDP to pay for services like healthcare and education if the overall “pie” keeps growing. Then, consumption of goods may rise as well even if its share in GDP steadily declines. However, income inequality has surged since the 1980s; and the rising price of vital services means that lower-income strata may be increasingly unable to pay for them. In this article, we develop the nexus between the cost disease and rising income inequality and sketch the ensuing challenges for social policy.

This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.

Fieldwork is one of the hallmarks of anthropology. Almost all students of anthropology have geographical and cultural specializations, ranging from a small group to a nation. Their interest areas are often identified or marked by real or putative boundaries; and it is within these boundaries that anthropologists have “founded” their own villages and tribes — “my village”, “my tribe.”

Special Needs Assessment Procedures (SNAPs) are procedures which evaluate children who have diverged from – implicitly implied and/or explicitly stated – norms. In the course of such a SNAP, the child is evaluated by a diverging set of experts who ultimately determine the place and mode of schooling. As such, SNAPs can be read as manifestations of potentially excluding practices but also as temporal and cultural configurations concerning the very topic. By considering these (ever changing) temporal, cultural and geographical influences and understandings, SNAPs – as one aspect regarding inclusion and exclusion – can be read divergently. This chapter takes a closer look at SNAPs by firstly outlining their very structure and then presenting theoretical as well as empirical instances in which SNAPs violated their own logic or, in other words: SNAPs, as a mechanism of producing inclusion/exclusion, became divergently. Based on these incoherencies, the chapter later outlines potentially fruitful paths of future research.