Adult protective services clients confirmed for self-neglect: characteristics and service use

Self-neglect is a complex and inadequately understood phenomenon that accounts for the majority of Adult Protective Services cases. This retrospective, record-based study of the characteristics of 210 older adults who were reported to Adult Protective Services and confirmed for self-neglect revealed that common health problems included nutritional frailty, arthritis, and incontinence. Comparisons based upon length of service showed differences in worker-rated social environment risk, client capacity, and activities of daily living performance. Comparisons of findings with those of other studies of self-neglect underscore the need for systematic research on this population.     

JEEA‐FBBVA Lecture 2012: USE AND ABUSE OF AUTHORITY: A BEHAVIORAL FOUNDATION OF THE EMPLOYMENT RELATION

Employment contracts give a principal the authority to decide flexibly which task his agent should execute. However, there is a tradeoff, first pointed out by Simon (1951, Econometrica, 19, 293–302), between flexibility and employer moral hazard. An employment contract allows the principal to adjust the task quickly to the realization of the state of the world, but he may also abuse this flexibility to exploit the agent. We capture this tradeoff in an experimental design and show that principals exhibit a strong preference for the employment contract. However, selfish principals exploit agents in one‐shot interactions, inducing the latter to resist entering into employment contracts. This resistance to employment contracts vanishes if fairness preferences in combination with reputation opportunities keep principals from abusing their power, leading to the widespread, endogenous formation of efficient long‐run employment relations. Our results inform the theory of the firm by showing how behavioral forces shape an important transaction cost of integration—the abuse of authority—and by providing an empirical basis for assessing differences between the Marxian and the Coasian view of the firm, as well as Alchian and Demsetz's (1972, American Economic Review, 62, 777–795) critique of the Coasian approach.     

Brief Report: Attitudes About Responding to Survey Questions Concerning Childhood Sexual Abuse by Hispanic Female College Students

In no studies have research participants been asked how they feel about answering questions concerning childhood sexual abuse. We have performed searches from two different search engines again and have found nothing published which specifically addresses this question in the way we have. A questionnaire about childhood sexual abuse was administered to a sample of Mexican-American female college students. Over 32% reported positive histories of childhood sexual abuse before age 18. These subjects were more uncomfortable (37%) than those who did not experience childhood sexual abuse when answering questions about childhood sexual abuse (12%; p < 0.00001), but they were not more uncomfortable in answering questions about alcohol or drug use. Women who were sexually abused in childhood also readily disclosed childhood sexual abuse histories despite revealing discomfort about being asked questions concerning childhood sexual abuse. Our findings support concerns by researchers that childhood sexual abuse is neglected because researchers have an unwarranted perception about how fragile sexually abused subjects are as subjects.     

Structural and Dynamic Process Family Risk Factors: Consequences for Holistic Adolescent Functioning

This study utilized a dynamic cumulative family risk model to explain changes in adolescent functioning. We used a person‐centered approach to detect patterns of academic, emotional, and behavioral functioning and the stability of these patterns using two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N= 10,173). Four adjustment profiles emerged at both time points. Although most (91%) adolescents remained in the same classifications at both waves, some experienced shifts in functioning. Changes in family process risk factors predicted these shifts in adjustment, whereas changes in structural risk factors predicted stable adjustment. We concluded that even short‐term changes in family processes are significant sources of risk for some adolescents.     

Harmonische und disharmonische Partnerbeziehungen im Spiegel ichnaher irrealer Präferenzrangreihen bei der Wunschprobe nach Wilde

We examined 13 couples, who maintained an apparently satisfactory connection together, and 15 ones, living in an unhappy matrimonial relation, with the aid of a ?projective“ technique, the ?Wunschprobe“ (wishes sample) according to Wilde. This instrument requires responses to 50 verbal terms, namely noticing to each of them whether the subject could imagine if she or he would like to be the object which the term indicates, in the case of being allowed to subsist only in a nonhuman form of existence; in addition to this task the reasons for these choices have to be given in each case. Finally the subject has to rank all the items, from the most favorite to the least liked. The latter procedure yields fully objective data and allows the calculation of rank correlations, showing the association between the arrangements of two persons. From each couple we demanded an additional ranking, concerning the imagination of how the partner would probably arrange the items. The correlations of all possible combinations (subjects themselves and their partners, real and imagined) were computed. We found marked differences concerning these correlation patterns of the two subgroups. A replication study (N₁ = 15, N₂ = 14) showed the stability of our results in the sense of some sort of cross-validation.     

An inequality that relates the size of a bipartite graph with its order and restrained domination number

Let \(G=(V,E)\) be a graph. A set \(S\subseteq V\) is a restrained dominating set if every vertex in \(V-S\) is adjacent to a vertex in \(S\) and to a vertex in \(V-S\). The restrained domination number of \(G\), denoted \(\gamma _{r}(G)\), is the smallest cardinality of a restrained dominating set of \(G\). Consider a bipartite graph \(G\) of order \(n\ge 4,\) and let \(k\in \{2,3,...,n-2\}.\) In this paper we will show that if \(\gamma _{r}(G)=k\), then \(m\le ((n-k)(n-k+6)+4k-8)/4\). We will also show that this bound is best possible.     

Leadership in faith‐based nonprofits

This case study illustrates the unique challenges of leading a faith‐based nonprofit organization within a multifaith constituency in Asia. The core themes of the case are based on research conducted with the staff, executive team, and board members of an international faith‐based nonprofit organization in Asia. Specifically, the case focuses on three identity‐based leadership dilemmas in relation to (1) creating a shared sense of organizational identity, (2) talent management, and (3) board governance. By describing the challenges faced by the CEO, the case shows how a strong faith‐based identification can positively bind an organization together, but also result in organizational blind spots with unintended consequences.     

Analysing and Forecasting Business Cycles with the Aid of Economic Indicators

This paper provides a survey of the development and role of economic indicator analysis in measuring and analysing business cycles. Our major objective is to highlight the usefulness of leading and coincident indexes of economic activity, both for forecasting purposes and as an aid to macroeconomic policy. We show that the analysis of business cycles can be facilitated by distinguishing between classical cycles (which involve fluctuations in the level of aggregate economic activity) and growth cycles (recurring fluctuations in the rate of growth of economic activity around its trend). Many recent theoretical and empirical studies have concentrated on deviations from trend (that is, growth cycles) to the exclusion of classical cycles. We also argue for the use of a range of indicators, combined in a composite index, rather than using a single series such as gross domestic product as a proxy for the business cycle. We illustrate our survey with empirical evidence on the business cycles of the United States and Australia.     

Limited Rationality and Strategic Interaction: The Impact of the Strategic Environment on Nominal Inertia

Much evidence suggests that people are heterogeneous with regard to their abilities to make rational, forward‐looking decisions. This raises the question as to when the rational types are decisive for aggregate outcomes and when the boundedly rational types shape aggregate results. We examine this question in the context of a long‐standing and important economic problem: the adjustment of nominal prices after an anticipated monetary shock. Our experiments suggest that two types of bounded rationality—money illusion and anchoring—are important behavioral forces behind nominal inertia. However, depending on the strategic environment, bounded rationality has vastly different effects on aggregate price adjustment. If agents' actions are strategic substitutes, adjustment to the new equilibrium is extremely quick, whereas under strategic complementarity, adjustment is both very slow and associated with relatively large real effects. This adjustment difference is driven by price expectations, which are very flexible and forward‐looking under substitutability but adaptive and sticky under complementarity. Moreover, subjects' expectations are also considerably more rational under substitutability.     

Comparing local and national service systems in social care Europe: framework and findings from the STEPS anti-discrimination learning disability project

This paper outlines the methodology and findings of a cross-national comparison of social care services for people with learning disabilities in Europe, developed from the EU funded STEPS anti-discrimination project. The comparative framework developed for the project is profiled and summary findings are organised into thematic dimensions. Wide variations in service organisation were evident, providing particular challenges for those involved in cross-national research or social work practice. Key variation was evident between local and national systems, the varying impact of generic and specialist community care and the degree of individualisation in services, with various structural, funding and policy barriers to integrated social work and ongoing de-institutionalisation evident. Development priorities for inclusive and anti-discriminatory practice included individual funding and planning, self-advocacy and user involvement in quality management.