Music Education and minority groups cultural and musical identities in the ‘newer’ South Africa: white Afrikaners and Indians

Music Education, as well as cultural and musical identities are all being renegotiated, post‐Apartheid, within the so‐called ‘newer’ rather than the commonly known ‘new’ South Africa. The developing situation with certain minority groups is particularly interesting. Education in general has undergone much change since the first democratic elections in 1994: music education specifically has been affected by such change in terms of content, delivery and assessment. Within the South African context, cultural and musical identities are often intertwined with language, racial and even tribal identities, and discussing one implies the others. We are particularly interested here in the role of formal Music Education in relation to white Afrikaners and Indians as they renegotiate their cultural development, including musical aspects.     

A deletion/substitution/addition algorithm for classification neural networks,with applications to biomedical data

Neural networks are a popular machine learning tool, particularly in applications such as protein structure prediction; however, overfitting can pose an obstacle to their effective use. Due to the large number of parameters in a typical neural network, one may obtain a network fit that perfectly predicts the learning data, yet fails to generalize to other data sets. One way of reducing the size of the parmeter space is to alter the network topology so that some edges are removed; however it is often not immediately apparent which edges should be eliminated. We propose a data-adaptive method of selecting an optimal network architecture using a deletion/substitution/addition algorithm. Results of this approach to classification are presented on simulated data and the breast cancer data of Wolberg and Mangasarian [1990. Multisurface method of pattern separation for medical diagnosis applied to breast cytology. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 87, 9193–9196].     

A reverse sunk cost effect in risky decision making: Sometimes we have too much invested to gamble

The sunk cost effect refers to the empirical finding that people tend to let their decisions be influenced by costs made at an earlier time in such a way that they are more risk seeking than they would be had they not made these costs. This finding seems to be in conflict with economic theory which implies that only incremental costs and benefits should affect decisions. The effect is often explained in terms of prospect theory of (Kahneman, D., Tversky, A., 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47, 263–291), suggesting that sunk costs may induce a ‘loss frame,’ consequently causing risk seeking behavior. We argue that sunk costs may also result in risk aversion. In the present study we investigated the effect of time and effort investments (Behavioral Sunk Costs) on risky decision making in gain and loss situations. The results show that, in agreement with prospect theory, participants were more risk averse in gain situations than in loss situations. Moreover, incurring Behavioral Sunk Costs appeared to increase risk aversive choices, i.e., a reverse sunk cost effect. Furthermore, the results suggest that, in loss situations, Behavioral Sunk Costs mainly lead to risk aversive behavior if opting for the ‘safe’ alternative is not accompanied by an increased possibility to regret the decision.     

The age of exploration and exploitation: Younger-looking leaders endorsed for change and older-looking leaders endorsed for stability

The current contribution extends theorizing on leadership and the exploration–exploitation dilemma using an evolutionary perspective. A theoretical connection is made between the exploration–exploitation dilemma and age-biased leadership preferences for exploratory change versus stable exploitation. For the majority of human evolution our species was semi- or entirely nomadic and the trade-off between exploration versus exploitation had substantial physical- and experience-based requirements which align with leadership opportunities as moderated by age. Thus, given the consistency and importance of correctly assigning leadership for the exploration–exploitation dilemma, human evolution has likely selected for age-biased leadership endorsement. Across three experiments we find that younger-looking leaders are endorsed for times of exploratory change and older-looking leaders for stable exploitation. Further, our results indicated that older leaders are endorsed for leading conservative exploitation of nonrenewable resources and younger leaders for exploration of renewable alternatives (i.e., green leadership). The results introduce an age-biased leadership endorsement hypothesis.     

Ideal Values and Counter‐ideal Values as Two Distinct Forces: Exploring a Gap in Organizational Value Research

Motives and values at work have long been key topics of business and management studies. In a focused review of the literature on the nature of human values, this paper identifies a disconnect with the literature on human motivation, despite the otherwise inherent relatedness of the two fields. Specifically, extant theory and research have conceptualized values generally in terms of ideals, namely desired end‐states that individuals strive to approach. Although values, by this definition, express motivational concerns, theories of human motivation suggest that there are two forces to consider, i.e. approach and avoidance motivation. By applying this ‘two forces’ perspective to value research, this paper identifies a gap in the literature on values: namely, the idea that individuals are also influenced by counter‐ideal values, i.e. end‐states that they deliberately seek to avoid. The identification of this gap opens up new opportunities for value research in general and organizational value research in particular. To pave the way for future research, this paper critically discusses the few studies that have taken first steps in that direction and outlines research questions that may follow for issues such as employer branding and person–organization fit. This paper closes by providing suggestions on how to tackle the issue in organizational practice.     

The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure

There is an extensive private sector literature on organizational change management. However, recent studies have suggested that the specific context of public organizations may have consequences for the management organizational change. This study examines to what extent different change approaches and transformational leadership of direct supervisors contribute to the effective implementation of organizational change in public organizations, and to what extent the bureaucratic structure of public organizations makes the implementation of organizational change s3pecific. The implementation of an organizational change in a Dutch public organization is studied using quantitative methods and techniques. The results indicate that bureaucratic organizations may effectively implement organizational change with both planned and emergent change approaches. The contribution of transformational leadership depends on the type of change approach and organizational structure. Transformational leadership behavior of direct supervisors contributes little to planned processes of change, but is crucial in emergent processes of change in a non-bureaucratic context. Although the literature on change management mostly emphasizes the leadership of senior managers, the leadership role of direct supervisors should not be overlooked during organizational change in public organizations.     

Unemployment and economic psychology: An introduction

Starting from literature a short sequential scheme is being presented, including contextual and causal factors of employment, phenomenal aspects of unemployment, moderator variables, effects and lastly interventions and solutions.General aspects as well as more restricted aspects of unemployment as an area of research within economic psychology are mentioned. The contributions within this issue are discussed in connection with the scheme and the different aspects that were distinguished.     

Ethnic intermarriage in the Netherlands: confirmations and refutations of accepted insights

Previous studies on ethnic intermarriage have been done mainly in the United States and in other classical immigration countries. This article examines ethnic intermarriage among Surinamese, Dutch Antilleans, Turks, and Moroccans in the Netherlands. From a theoretical and empirical perspective, it is important to examine whether patterns observed earlier in traditional immigrant countries equally apply to the Dutch context. To obtain a sufficiently large sample, this study pools five nationally representative surveys, conducted in the period 1988–2002. In line with findings documented before, it observes that ethnic exogamy occurs more frequently among the second generation, and among those who arrived at a younger age, and who are higher educated. Equally corresponding to previous work, the study reports that ethnic intermarriage is more frequent when the group-specific sex ratio is more uneven and when the ethnic group is predominantly second generation. Contrary to findings observed elsewhere, results show that the black Surinamese and Dutch Antilleans have high intermarriage rates and that there is little evidence for status exchange in mixed marriages.     

加入WTO后我国农产品贸易中的法律问题

加入WTO后,我国的经济将纳入全球化的轨道,其中我国农产品贸易将面临较好的机遇和较大的挑战,完善农产品贸易中的法律规定,为农产品贸易提供优质的法律服务是现阶段我国法律工作中的一项重要任务.     

Mutual workers'insurance: A historical outline

This article focuses on the historical development of small workers'mutual insurance societies whose members manage the fund themselves. The article begins by describing the remarkable similarities in terms of characteristics and development of these societies in different places and periods. It then discusses various non-directly democratic competitors in the field of social insurance and forms of State intervention. Finally, the article attempts to explain why competition from the private sector and State interventions forced directly democratic societies to choose between bureaucratization, marginalization and disbandment.