THE RISE OF THE EAST AND THE FAR EAST: GERMAN LABOR MARKETS AND TRADE INTEGRATION

We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and “the East” (China and Eastern Europe) in the period 1988–2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross‐regional variation in initial industry structures and use trade flows of other high‐income countries as instruments for regional import and export exposure. We find that the rise of the East in the world economy caused substantial job losses in German regions specialized in import‐competing industries, both in manufacturing and beyond. Regions specialized in export‐oriented industries, however, experienced even stronger employment gains and lower unemployment. In the aggregate, we estimate that this trade integration has caused some 442,000 additional jobs in the economy and contributed to retaining the manufacturing sector in Germany. This is almost exclusively driven by the rise of Eastern Europe, not by China. We also conduct an analysis at the individual worker level, and find that trade had a stabilizing overall effect on employment relationships.     

'Given up hope of dying': A child protection approach to deliberate self-harm in adolescents admitted to a paediatric ward

This paper describes an approach developed by a local authority social worker based in a paediatric department, working in close collaboration with consultant child and adolescent psychiatrists and paediatricians. The literature is informative on the significant psychosocial difficulties of young people who harm themselves deliberately, but there is little published work on the complexities of the actual multidisciplinary care given to these patients, the majority of whom are not actively suicidal by the time they are interviewed. The task is as much to intervene in the lives of young people at risk of harm or neglect as to prevent suicide.     

Problem gambling in the workplace, characteristics of employees seeking help

Few rigorous research studies exist to define the impact problem gambling may have on the workforce and the workplace. This study is an initial attempt to address this void by exploring the vocational patterns and demographics of callers with self report gambling problems to a state helpline. It utilizes Chi-squared Automatic Interaction (CHAID) Technique analysis to assess 1072 working age callers with gambling related problems. The goal of this exploratory investigation is to determine if the issue of problem gambling in the workplace warrants further research and, potentially, design of interventions. Discussion centers on the use of the information for development of employer based prevention and intervention efforts.     

Reflexivity, its Meanings and Relevance for Social Work: A Critical Review of the Literature

The concept of ‘reflexivity’ has become increasinglysignificant in social work literature in relation to socialwork education, theory and practice. However, our reading ofthe literature indicates that there is a lack of clarity aboutthe concept in terms of who is being exhorted to be ‘reflexive’,when and how. This article addresses these questions througha critical review of social work literature since the 1990sthat discusses the concept of ‘reflexivity’. Giventhat many authors seem to use the concepts of ‘reflexivity’and ‘(critical) reflection’ interchangeably, wealso apply this analysis to ‘reflection’ and ‘criticalreflection’. This article raises important questions abouthow the concepts of ‘reflexivity’, ‘criticalreflection’ and ‘reflectivity’ are definedand the different consequences such definitions might have forsocial work education, theory and practice.     

Diagnosing and treating testosterone deficiency in different parts of the world. Results from global market research

Aim. This study analysed variations between different regions of the world in diagnosing and treating testosterone (T) deficiency.

Methods. Physicians were interviewed in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, in Brazil, in Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Items in the survey: 1) reasons/motivation to use or not to use T; 2) what category of patients would not receive T on the basis of these concerns; 3) concerns about prostate pathology in the decision not to provide T treatment; 4) phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) inhibitors are efficacious, but T treatment makes a comeback.

Results. Between 5% and 10% of consulting patients suffered from T deficiency. The fear to induce prostate cancer appeared very powerful. About 68% of physicians associate the use of T more with risks than benefits, more so in Europe than elsewhere. As a result about 35% of hypogonadal men do not receive treatment. The PDE-5 inhibitors are very prominent in the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Of patients suffering from erectile dysfunction, 18% to 29% have T deficiency which is not always diagnosed and treated.

Conclusion. World-wide physicians require more education on diagnosing T deficiency, on the role of T in erectile dysfunction and the relative safety of testosterone treatment.     

A history of nonviolence? The social construction of Costa Rican peaceful identity

Crime, violence, and insecurity are among the most important social topics in contemporary Costa Rica. These three issues play a central role in the media, politics, and everyday life, and the impression has emerged that security has changed for the worse and that society is now permanently threatened. However, crime statistics do not support this perception. The paper thus asks why violence and crime generate such huge fear in society. The thesis is that the Costa Rican national identity – with Costa Rica constructed as a nonviolent nation – impedes a realistic discussion about the phenomena and their causes, and simultaneously provides a platform for sensationalism and the social construction of fear.     

Towards the price of leasing online

We consider online optimization problems in which certain goods have to be acquired in order to provide a service or infrastructure. Classically, decisions for such problems are considered as final: one buys the goods. However, in many real world applications, there is a shift away from the idea of buying goods. Instead, leasing is often a more flexible and lucrative business model. Research has realized this shift and recently initiated the theoretical study of leasing models (Anthony and Gupta in Proceedings of the integer programming and combinatorial optimization: 12th International IPCO Conference, Ithaca, NY, USA, June 25–27, 2007; Meyerson in Proceedings of the 46th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2005), 23–25 Oct 2005, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2005; Nagarajan and Williamson in Discret Optim 10(4):361–370, 2013) We extend this line of work and suggest a more systematic study of leasing aspects for a class of online optimization problems. We provide two major technical results. We introduce the leasing variant of online set multicover and give an \(O\left( \log (mK)\log n\right) \)-competitive algorithm (with n, m, and K being the number of elements, sets, and leases, respectively). Our results also imply improvements for the non-leasing variant of online set cover. Moreover, we extend results for the leasing variant of online facility location. Nagarajan and Williamson (Discret Optim 10(4):361–370, 2013) gave an \(O\left( K\log n\right) \)-competitive algorithm for this problem (with n and K being the number of clients and leases, respectively). We remove the dependency on n (and, thereby, on time). In general, this leads to a bound of \(O\left( l_{\text {max}} \log l_{\text {max}} \right) \) (with the maximal lease length \(l_{\text {max}} \)). For many natural problem instances, the bound improves to \(O\left( K^2\right) \).     

How does consumer age affect the desire for new products and brands? A multi-group causal analysis

Marketing lacks comprehension on the increasingly important segment of mature consumers in regard to their behavior and respective reasons for certain behavior. This study on the desire for alternative products or brands within the domain of fast moving consumer goods was capable of verifying differences among age-groups. While the keenness for cross-buying increases with age, the desire for switching to other familiar brands than the one usually purchased, and the desire for switching to new brand alternatives decrease with age; Thus indicating age-patterns in product category-specific innovativeness and variety seeking. The study also considers a wide range of behavioral determinants such as product satisfaction, product involvement, category experience, perceived purchase risk etc. mediating the effect of age on these desires, giving a fairly good picture of the unveiled causes for the age group differences. Furthermore, the issue of age potentially operating as a moderating variable on the effects of the behavioral determinants on the desires for product and brand alternatives found consideration in this study, but was proven to be of marginal relevance.