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The purpose of this study is to examine how trends in historical data influence two types of predictive judgments: territory selection and salesperson hiring. Sales managers are confronted frequently with decisions that explicitly or implicitly involve forecasting with limited information. In doing so, they conceptualize how the magnitude of these trend effects may be affected by the experience managers have in making these types of judgments. Study 1 provides evidence of a curvilinear relationship between experience and reliance on the trend data whereby the sales territory selections of novice sales managers exhibited greater susceptibility to informational trends than did the evaluations of naïve and expert decision-makers. A benchmark analysis in Study 2 further revealed that the salesperson selections made by novice and expert sales managers were equally biased, albeit in opposite directions, with novices overweighting and experts underweighting historical performance trends. Implications of these findings are discussed, as are avenues for future research.

The authors employ an online experimental design methodology of practicing managers. For Study 1, they use regression, whereas Study 2 uses a deterministic process to develop a priori predictive benchmark forecasts. Ordinary least squares is then used to estimate manager’s decisions, which are then compared to the predictive forecasts to determine accuracy.

Study 1 provides evidence of a curvilinear relationship between experience and reliance on the trend data whereby the sales territory selections of novice sales managers exhibited greater susceptibility to informational trends than did the evaluations of naïve and expert decision-makers. A benchmark analysis in Study 2 further revealed that the salesperson selections made by novice and expert sales managers were equally biased, albeit in opposite directions, with novices overweighting and experts underweighting historical performance trends.

The present inquiry is the first to provide insights into an important issue that has been the subject of equivocal findings, namely, whether experience in a judgmental domain exerts a facilitating or debilitating effect on sales manager decision-making. In this regard, some research supports the intuition that experience in making a particular type of decision can insulate managers from judgmental bias and, in doing so, improve decision quality (see Shanteau, [1992a] for a summary). In contrast, other work provides a more pessimistic view by demonstrating that the quality of decision-making is either unaffected by or can erode with additional experience (Hutchinson et al., 2010). To help reconcile these conflicting findings, the authors presented and tested a theoretical framework conceptualizing how trends may influence predictive judgments across three levels of decision-maker experience.

How can we help poor people to earn more from their knowledge – rather than from their sweat and their muscle? This chapter is about promoting the innovation, knowledge, and creative skills of poor people in poor countries – and particularly about improving the earnings of poor people from such knowledge and skills. My principal message is that a lot is being done in this regard. On the whole, this useful work is a matter of straightforward application of familiar legal and commercial instruments and skills such as copyrights, trademarks, and patents. This does not mean that it is easy, however.

The main purpose of this paper is to consider the role of discretization of random variables in analyzing statistical tolerancing, and to propose a new discretizing method along with a study on its usefulness.

The approach for discretization of a continuous distribution is based on the concept of moment equalization with the original random variable, conditionally given a set of points of realization. For the purpose of demonstration the normal distribution has been discretized into seven points. Application of the discretization method in approximating the distribution/survival function of a complex system has also been studied. Numerical analysis on two important engineering items has been undertaken and the closeness between the values of the distribution/survival functions obtained by simulation and the proposed method has been examined to indicate the advantage of the proposed approach.

A comparative study with the earlier reported discretizing methods indicates that the proposed method, which is easy to implement, provides better results for most of the cases studied in this work.

Using the proposed approach one can approximate the probability distribution of a complex system with random component values, which cannot be analytically expressed.

This paper is able to provide a new direction in reliability management research, because it can be used for product design of many important engineering items such as solid‐shaft, hollow cylinder, torsion bar, I‐beam etc.

This research gives a new linear method of discretization. It gives better results than the existing discretization methods of Experimental design, Moment equalization, and Discrete Concentration for reliability (survival probability) determination of solid‐shaft and power resistor.

The study attempts to look into the poverty and deprivation in slums across various social and religious groups and its bearing on the children. It not only analyses income poverty but also looks at derivation of access to basic services including water, sanitation and drainage. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the income and non-income deprivation of childbearing and non-childbearing households.

The study is based on a survey of 541 sample households selected from 23 slums of Kolkata, India. The authors have adopted a mixture of cluster sampling and systematic sampling technique. The slums of Kolkata have been segregated into three regions and further segregated by overlaying the population and average monthly income of slums. Slums have been selected randomly from these stratums. Households have been selected from the slums by systematic sampling method.

The Muslim and backward caste households are more deprived with respect to income and access to basic services as compared to Hindu general (upper) caste. Deprivations with respect to income and basic services are more pronounced for households having child than for households not having child. Childbearing households are less likely to receive better water supply, sanitation and drainage services as compared to others due to their religious and residential identities. Slum children get affected by the complex political economy of basic service delivery. The study also finds that electoral competition has positive and political clientelism has negative impact on access to basic services.

The study is based on results obtained from survey in one city of India. Hence, these results cannot be generalized for India or for the developing countries taken together. Further studies across cities of developing countries are required to arrive at any generalized conclusion.

The study suggests that public policies should attempt to disentangle minorities and children from the local political economy. Otherwise, deprivation and disparity even across low income households living in slums would persist. Deprivation of child bearing households would lead to a deteriorating future for the slum children.

This paper have pave the path for new generation public policy for the urban poor and minorities.

This paper highlights the incidence of deprivation of minorities and childbearing households vis-à-vis other households in the slums. It contributes to the overall understanding on urban poverty.