In a Nervous Voice: Acoustic Analysis and Perception of Anxiety in Social Phobics’ Speech

This study investigated the effects of anxiety on nonverbal aspects of speech using data collected in the framework of a large study of social phobia treatment. The speech of social phobics (N = 71) was recorded during an anxiogenic public speaking task both before and after treatment. The speech samples were analyzed with respect to various acoustic parameters related to pitch, loudness, voice quality, and temporal aspects of speech. The samples were further content-masked by low-pass filtering (which obscures the linguistic content of the speech but preserves nonverbal affective cues) and subjected to listening tests. Results showed that a decrease in experienced state anxiety after treatment was accompanied by corresponding decreases in (a) several acoustic parameters (i.e., mean and maximum voice pitch, high-frequency components in the energy spectrum, and proportion of silent pauses), and (b) listeners’ perceived level of nervousness. Both speakers’ self-ratings of state anxiety and listeners’ ratings of perceived nervousness were further correlated with similar acoustic parameters. The results complement earlier studies on vocal affect expression which have been conducted on posed, rather than authentic, emotional speech.     

The foundations of the organizational culture literature: An integrative framework

A great deal has been written in recent years regarding aspects of corporate-cultural phenomena. This literature, however, should not be viewed as spontaneously emerging in the late 1970s. While increased international competition and, relatedly, the example of Japanese management appear to have prompted the discovery of culture in Western economic organizations, there is a large body of literature that preceded and has greatly influenced this recent corporate culture phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of this literature, to present a framework for integrating these earlier works, and to discuss its implications.     

Changing trends in the involvement of Mexican property owners in municipal politics

Cet article étudie le changement de tendances du comportement politique des proprietaires de biens dans un municipio rural mexicain. On a utilise onze analyses trajectoires pour déterminer les effets du degré d'alphabétisation, de la proximité, et de la propriété sur le niveau de participation au gouvernement municipal, et pour découvrir comment ces effets ont changé au cours du temps. Les coefficients ont été interprétes dans le contexte de la connaissance antérieure par l'auteur de l'histoire locale. Les résultats démontrent que les répercussions de la propriété ont graduellement baissé, tel que prévu, tandis que le degré d'alphabétisation et la proximité ont gagné en importance. Cependant la variation globale qui pourrait être expliquée, a aussi baissé. Ceci indique que dautres facteurs externes ont joué un rôle de plus en plus important.
This paper examines changing trends in the political behaviour of property owners in a rural Mexican municipio. Eleven path analyses were used to determine the effects ot literacy, proximity, and property on the level of participation in municipal government, and to discover how these effects changed over time. The coefficients were interpreted in the light of the author's previous knowledge of local history. It was found that the impact of property gradually declined, as expected, while literacy and proximity became more important. However, the overall variation that could be explained also declined, indicating that other, external factors played an increasingly important role.     

Debt management in a small open economy: A theoretical and an empirical study for Belgium

This article analyzes the effects of debt management and its consequence for the control of base money in a small open economy (Belgium). The study compares the effects obtained from a small theoretical model with the results of a larger empirical model.The theoretical model focuses on the financing of government by money operation, on the bond rate, and on the international reserve of the Central Bank.The empirical model is a medium-term one, including the demand and the supply sectors of the economy and permitting simultaneous analysis of real and financial variables.The effects of an endogeneous or exogenous debt management have been studied by numerical simulation of modification in the public expenditure, the world trade, and the discount rate.     

EXCESS DEMAND AND MARKET ADJUSTMENT

This paper develops a model of wage and price adjustment that is based on the optimizing behavior of firms. The output of the model is a relationship between price changes and excess demands that looks like a generalized Walrasian adjustment but which is based on firm microfoundations. The model is then applied to stability analysis and the "Phillips curve," using restrictions derived from the underlying optimization to generate results.