ILR Impact Brief – Diversity and Inclusion: Is There Really a Difference?

By almost any measure, workforce heterogeneity is increasing. With more women, ethnic and racial. minorities, and people with different lifestyles and learning styles holding down jobs, employers are searching for strategies that effectively and efficiently put these varied skills and perspectives to maximal use. Traditional approaches to diversity management include targeted recruitment, career development, mentoring, and education and training. Some organizations, however, take a broader view and seek to eliminate barriers to full utilization of varied worker competencies. This latter approach stresses inclusion, rather than diversity, and typically involves initiatives that focus on employee participation, enhanced communication, and stronger community relations. Despite the apparent distinction between diversity and inclusion strategies, employers may use the words interchangeably

Pork-barrel politics, discriminatory policies and fiscal federalism

This paper examines the role of discriminatory policy tools in a model of redistributive politics with jurisdictional specific projects. In equilibrium, the ability to tactically target both jurisdictional specific projects, with benefits concentrated within a given jurisdiction, and the costs associated with those projects across multiple jurisdictions, leads to inefficiency in the provision of the “local” projects. In particular, politically motivated discrimination in the provision of local projects and/or their associated costs results in the foregoing of efficient projects. However, greater discriminatory ability in the set of available policies lowers the level of inefficiency in the provision of the local projects. -- Dieser Aufsatz untersucht in einem Modell umverteilender Politik die Rolle von lokalen öffentlichen Gütern und öffentlichen Projekten in einzelnen Jurisdiktionen. Politiker können aus strategischen Gründen bestimmte lokale Projekte durchführen und dadurch gezielt bestimmte Gebietskörperschaften beeinflussen, welche die Vorteile dieser Projekte genießen, während die damit verbundenen Kosten von mehreren Jurisdiktionen getragen werden. Dies führt zu einer Ineffizienz in der Durchführung solcher lokalen Projekte. Insbesondere führt eine politisch motivierte Ungleichbehandlung verschiedener Gebietskörperschaften bei der Durchführung lokaler Projekte bzw. ihrer Finanzierung dazu, dass manche effizienten Projekte nicht durchgeführt werden. Allerdings geht diese Ineffizienz zurück, wenn es größere Möglichkeiten zu ungleicher Behandlungen verschiedener Jurisdiktionen gibt.Fiscal Federalism,redistributive politics,distributive politics,Colonel Blotto

Unique Hue Judgment in Different Languages: A Comparison of Korean and English

Three experiments investigated unique hues (Hering, 1878) in native Korean and English speakers. Many recent studies have shown that color categories differ across languages and cultures, challenging the proposal that a particular set of color categories is universal and potentially innate. Unique hue judgments, and selection of the best examples of those categories have also been found to vary within an English-speaking population. Here we investigated unique hue judgments and possible discrepancies between unique hue and best example judgments in two languages. Experiment 1 found that the loci of unique hues were similar for English and Korean speakers. Experiment 2 replicated and extended this result, using both single and double hue scaling. Experiment 3 showed that, in both cultures, unique hue choices depended on the range, and organization of the array from which participants chose. The results of this study suggest that unique hue judgments vary according to the experimental task, in both language

Relatively Speaking: An Account of the Relationship between Language and Thought in the Color Domain

This chapter is divided into six sections. The first sets out the background of the debate about the relationship between language and cognition in the color domain. The second explains how recent studies of color recognition employing visual search tasks have clarified this relationship. This section also argues that these studies point to the existence of two separate systems that influence perception and categorization of color; one of which is linguistically based, and one of which is not affected by language. The third section critically evaluates recent claims that there are similarities between color terms in the world's languages that point to the existence of color universals. The fourth section examines children's color term acquisition in an attempt to trace the mechanisms bywhich color categories are acquired. It also discusses whether infants have an innate prepartitioned organization of color categories that is overridden during the learning process. The two final sections outline some outstanding questions, note some methodological constraints on the conclusions that can be drawn from the accumulated evidence, and argue that much more empirical investigation is still needed in this field

Development of a pyrolysis waste recovery model with designs, test plans, and applications for space-based habitats

Extensive literature searches revealed the numerous advantages of using pyrolysis as a means of recovering usable resources from inedible plant biomass, paper, plastics, other polymers, and human waste. A possible design of a pyrolysis reactor with test plans and applications for use on a space-based habitat are proposed. The proposed system will accommodate the wastes generated by a four-person crew while requiring solar energy as the only power source. Waste materials will be collected and stored during the 15-day lunar darkness periods. Resource recovery will occur during the daylight periods. Usable gases such as methane and hydrogen and a solid char will be produced while reducing the mass and volume of the waste to almost infinitely small levels. The system will be operated economically, safely, and in a non-polluting manner

The Non-Constant-Sum Colonel Blotto Game

The Colonel Blotto game is a two-player constant-sum game in which each player simultaneously distributes his fixed level of resources across a set of contests. In the traditional formulation of the Colonel Blotto game, the players’ resources are “use it or lose it” in the sense that any resources which are not allocated to one of the contests are forfeited. This article examines a non-constant-sum version of the Colonel Blotto game which relaxes this use it or lose it feature. We find that if the level of asymmetry between the players’ budgets is below a threshold, then there exists a oneto- one mapping from the unique set of equilibrium univariate marginal distribution functions in the constant-sum game to those in the non-constant-sum game. Once the asymmetry of the players’ budgets exceeds the threshold this relationship breaks down and we construct a new equilibrium.Colonel Blotto Game, All-Pay Auction, Contests, Mixed Strategies