On-shift and daily variations in self-report and performance measures in rotating-shift and permanent night nurses

An intensive study was conducted of the influence of type of shift system, type of shift, and time-into-shift on a battery of on-shift and daily measures obtained from 61 female nurses over a 28-day period. Thirty-two rotating-shift nurses and 28 permanent night nurses recorded data on a hand-held computer at the start and end of each day, and every 2-h during their shifts. The measures included a sleep diary, self-ratings of mood, workload, and personal disruption, and two cognitive performance tasks. These results suggest that the permanent night nurses were no worse off and for some measures were actually better off than the rotating-shift nurses after controlling for differences in age and shiftwork experience; the night-shift was problematic for the rotating-shift nurses but so was the early shift; mood deteriorated and reaction time got slower over the course of the night-shift but extra long responses (which may correspond to lapses of attention) and rated workload were lower on the night-shift. The relatively large number of consecutive night-shifts worked by the rotating-shift nurses, the uneven distribution of workload between shifts, and the long night-shift may have contributed to these results.     

On-shift and daily variations in self-report and performance measures in rotating-shift and permanent night nurses

Abstract

An intensive study was conducted of the influence of type of shift system, type of shift, and time-into-shift on a battery of on-shift and daily measures obtained from 61 female nurses over a 28-day period. Thirty-two rotating-shift nurses and 28 permanent night nurses recorded data on a hand-held computer at the start and end of each day, and every 2-h during their shifts. The measures included a sleep diary, self-ratings of mood, workload, and personal disruption, and two cognitive performance tasks. These results suggest that the permanent night nurses were no worse off and for some measures were actually better off than the rotating-shift nurses after controlling for differences in age and shiftwork experience; the night-shift was problematic for the rotating-shift nurses but so was the early shift; mood deteriorated and reaction time got slower over the course of the night-shift but extra long responses (which may correspond to lapses of attention) and rated workload were lower on the night-shift. The relatively large number of consecutive night-shifts worked by the rotating-shift nurses, the uneven distribution of workload between shifts, and the long night-shift may have contributed to these results.     

E-governance and Corruption-developments and Issues in Ethiopia

This paper reports the results of a survey of 400 respondents in Ethiopia about factors generating corruption and the potential of e-Governance to mitigate corruption. It is suggested that e-Governance can help not only in weeding out corruption but also in the establishment of sounder government citizen relationships in Ethiopia. While e-Governance cannot cure all the structural factors that breed corruption in the society, strategic implementation of e-Governance can help improve the critical variable in combating corruption-government citizen relationships. It is argued that while e-Governance initiatives can make important contributions to improving public services they can best do so by helping improve overall relationships between governments and citizens.

Ambiguity in the Small and in the Large

This paper considers local and global multiple‐prior representations of ambiguity for preferences that are (i) monotonic, (ii) Bernoullian, that is, admit an affine utility representation when restricted to constant acts, and (iii) locally Lipschitz continuous. We do not require either certainty independence or uncertainty aversion. We show that the set of priors identified by Ghirardato, Maccheroni, and Marinacci's (2004) “unambiguous preference” relation can be characterized as a union of Clarke differentials. We then introduce a behavioral notion of “locally better deviation” at an act and show that it characterizes the Clarke differential of the preference representation at that act. These results suggest that the priors identified by these preference statements are directly related to (local) optimizing behavior.     

Hopelessness and suicidality in Turkish and American respondents

In samples of both Turkish and American students, the correlates of suicidal ideation were found to be similar, with depression, hopelessness, and attitudes toward the ownership of life predicting the level of suicidal ideation in both samples. Results using a Western measure of religiosity, however, were different in the two cultures, indicating the need for measures of religiosity specifically tailored for Turkish culture.     

Design and competition in engineering

This article considers the influence of good design as a factor in engineering innovation, and its effect on two sectors of industry in particular—agricultural implements and automobiles. In each case the authors point out how different aspects of design, or largely differing design philosophies, have had a marked influence on product performance and on competitive success.     

Workaholics and Dropouts in Organizations

This paper reports the results of experiments designed to test the theory of the optimal composition of prizes in contests. In the aggregate the behavior of subjects is consistent with that predicted by the theory, but we find that such aggregate results mask an unexpected compositional effect on the individual level. Whereas theory predicts that subject efforts are continuous and increasing functions of ability, the actual efforts of our laboratory subjects bifurcate. Low‐ability workers drop out and exert little or no effort, and high‐ability workers try too hard. This bifurcation, which is masked by aggregation, can be explained by assuming loss aversion on the part of the subjects. (JEL: C92, D44, D72, D82, J31)     

Measurement and control in marketing

Various reasons for the comparative lack of success of management science in marketing are examined in general, but provocative, terms. There are the basic complexity of the market, the volumes of often unreliable data, the division between the various measurement and control professionals involved in marketing. There are the different perspectives, time scales, rewards and objectives of the brand manager and the management scientist. Some similarity of intellectual approach, perhaps even arrogance, does little to improve common understanding. But the central obstacle to progress is the “3M Problem”: how much Money should be devoted to Measurement and control relative to direct Marketing activities?A general increase in educational and professional standards is called for, with a clear division of roles between the generalist, the specialist and the academic management scientist. The 3M Problem is thrown out as a challenge to the academic.     

HRD and specialists in organizations

This paper describes the issues for HRD arising from research into the role of government statistical staff in the British and Canadian public policy processes. It identifies the influences of strategy, structure and location on that role, the barriers to increasing the policy impact of the statistical staff, and the training and development implications of staff needing to deliver more with fewer resources. The paper finishes by outlining how the findings raise general HRD issues for organizations employing specialist groups.     

Preferences in teams and hierarchies

This paper describes the methodology developed for a laboratory for project selection and the results of use of the computerized ranking procedure for other complex managerial decisions. In addition to project selection, the system is feasible and instructive in personnel selection, comparison of management strategies, purchasing decisions and merit-based distribution of awards. The massive input required by many existing systems is not necessary for this absolute deviation ranking system. Up to 20 attributes and 200 projects can be compared. Measures of consistency and reliability arc proposed for estimating the validity of the final weights. Preliminary experiments and actual use of the system provide empirical validation. The system offers an organized, structured way of making decisions which enhances the identification and subsequent refinement of criteria considered, and provides a concise, highly credible format for presentation and justification of decisions.     

Quorum and Turnout in Referenda

We analyze the effect of turnout requirements in referenda in the context of a group turnout model. We show that a participation quorum requirement may reduce the turnout so severely that it generates a “quorum paradox”: In equilibrium, the expected turnout exceeds the participation quorum only if this requirement is not imposed. Furthermore, a participation quorum does not necessarily imply a bias for the status quo. We also show that in order to induce a given expected turnout and avoid the quorum paradox, the quorum should be set at a level that is lower than half the target. Finally, we argue that a super majority requirement to overturn the status quo is never equivalent to a participation quorum. (JEL: D72)     

印度的腐败和反腐败

腐败是当今世界的一个顽症,印度也不例外。我在想到,马邦政府二号人物、副首席部长维赛尔会因此辞担任中国驻印度孟买总领事期间,亲身感受到了印度的职。据调查人员透露,涉嫌此案的印度警察和政客至少腐败和反腐败。贪污受贿、挪用公款和敲诈勒索等腐败有60人。其中,有的曾经和我非常熟识。现象一直是印度社会中的一个痼疾,涉及社会的方方面想不到印度腐败如此横行面。据“透明国际”组织调查,印度在亚洲最腐败的国家中一般排在前三名当中。印度的腐败现象触目惊心,印印度的腐败现象究竟有多严重?印度《撒哈拉时度的反腐败力度也很大,不少做…     

Cognitive and Motivational Biases in Decision and Risk Analysis

Behavioral decision research has demonstrated that judgments and decisions of ordinary people and experts are subject to numerous biases. Decision and risk analysis were designed to improve judgments and decisions and to overcome many of these biases. However, when eliciting model components and parameters from decisionmakers or experts, analysts often face the very biases they are trying to help overcome. When these inputs are biased they can seriously reduce the quality of the model and resulting analysis. Some of these biases are due to faulty cognitive processes; some are due to motivations for preferred analysis outcomes. This article identifies the cognitive and motivational biases that are relevant for decision and risk analysis because they can distort analysis inputs and are difficult to correct. We also review and provide guidance about the existing debiasing techniques to overcome these biases. In addition, we describe some biases that are less relevant because they can be corrected by using logic or decomposing the elicitation task. We conclude the article with an agenda for future research.     

Stability and Preference Alignment in Matching and Coalition Formation

We study matching and coalition formation environments allowing complementarities and peer effects. Agents have preferences over coalitions, and these preferences vary with an underlying, and commonly known, state of nature. Assuming that there is substantial variability of preferences across states of nature, we show that there exists a core stable coalition structure in every state if and only if agents' preferences are pairwise‐aligned in every state. This implies that there is a stable coalition structure if agents' preferences are generated by Nash bargaining over coalitional outputs. We further show that all stability‐inducing rules for sharing outputs can be represented by a profile of agents' bargaining functions and that agents match assortatively with respect to these bargaining functions. This framework allows us to show how complementarities and peer effects overturn well known comparative statics of many‐to‐one matching.     

Production technology and management in planned and market economies

This paper discusses how technological innovation takes place in manufacturing industry, and especially in the engineering sector, contrasting in particular the effects of the Western market economy, and the East European planned economy. The relative lack of cross-influence between formal scientific research and actual industrial innovation practice in this area is first discussed. Comparative studies of engineering practice in planned and market economies are described which point to the important influence of the economic environment on innovation practice in the factory's design office, and on the shop-floor. The East European Soviet Type Economy is seen to have features which in the light of recent Western empirical studies into industrial innovation, must hamper this process. In particular it is proposed that its relative economic and social rigidity has an important restricting influence on the actual process of innovation in the factory.