On measures of productivity

The welfare of an individual enterprise, as well as that of the national economy, very much depends on productivity. But it appears that methods for determining measures of productivity are lamentably unsophisticated and lead to many ambiguities and inconsistencies. It is generally suggested that productivity represents some ratio of output to input, but existing measures of inputs and outputs are unsatisfactory, largely because they gloss over the difficulties of reducing multi-inputs and multi-outputs to single denominators. This paper examines certain approaches that may be developed to handle some of the measurement problems involved in this area.     

UNDERSTANDING AND TREATING POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER SYMPTOMS IN FEMALE PARTNERS OF VETERANS WITH PTSD

Studies of post-traumatic stress disorder have focused primarily on veterans, generally ignoring their female partners (wives or girlfriends). recently, clinicians have begun to identify PTSD-like symptoms in these female partners, but the literature describing this phenomenon has been limited. This paper addresses the fact that women in long-term relationships with veterans suffering from PTSD commonly experience PTSD-like psychiatric symptoms themseoves. These wonem's symptoms and issues they face in their relationships with their veteran partners are described. Conceptual explanations of and causal factors for these women's symptoms are presented, followed by discussion of treatment approaches and issues.     

Nuns and monkeys: investigating the behavior of our oldest old

The use of nonhuman primates, particularly rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), as the best model for human physiological and cognitive aging is broadly accepted. Studies employing nonhuman primates to investigate behavioral changes that may occur with increasing age, however, are not common mostly because of the unavailability of appropriate subjects. Recent longitudinal human studies suggest that individual personality might play a large role in aging "successfully" and in the retention of high levels of cognition into old age. As a result of the demographic trend of increasing numbers of aged monkeys and apes in captivity, an opportunity exists to further investigate behavioral aging using the monkey model.     

Cancer and aging: yin, yang, and p53

The author discusses a recent paper published in Nature that shows that a hyperactive allele of the tumor suppressor p53 leads to the development of some premature aging phenotypes in mice. This new discovery is discussed in light of previous findings related to mechanisms of aging.     

Evidence-based practice in community-based child welfare systems

The immaturity of the evidence base in some areas of child welfare practice demands that practitioners approach the development and refinement of practice in a systematic way that explicitly seeks to build on and learn from experience. The efforts of public child welfare agencies in Boston and Cleveland show that it is possible to draw on a broader base of knowledge and experience while responding to unique conditions and circumstances in each agency's community.     

Sticks,Stones and Semantics: The Ivory Tower Bully's Vocabulary of Motives

This ethnography focuses on the techniques of normalization used by university professors who are accused by their colleagues of bullying behavior. We examine how the organizational structure and institutional values of the university provide protective coloration for academic intimidation and discourage both the detection and effective labeling of such behavior. In noting that attempts to label bullying behavior frequently fail because the judgments are seen as mere matters of opinion in an environment whose principal currency of exchange is opinion itself, we modify and extend Sykes and Matza's discussion of neutralization techniques to academic settings. While we cannot speak to the presence or absence of guilt feelings on the part of alleged academic bullies, or to whether neutralization techniques successfully assuage such feelings, we can nevertheless discern the operation of these techniques to resist the imputation of unflattering social identities and/or to lay claim to public identities that are highly esteemed within the academy. Moreover, we identify three additional techniques of normalization that are employed by alleged ivory tower bullies: appropriation and inversion, in which accused bullies claim victim status for themselves; evidentiary solipsism, in which alleged bullies portray themselves as uniquely capable of divining and defining the true meaning-structure of events; and emotional obfuscation, which takes the form of employing symbols and imagery that are chosen for their perceived ability to elicit an emotional response on the part of an academic audience.     

A productivity study in a chemical plant

This paper describes a case study in the application of a productivity analysis model in a plant producing industrial gases. Although the process is a relatively simple one, several inputs (labour, electricity, capital and some materials) and several outputs (liquid and gaseous oxygen, gaseous nitrogen, argon and a hydrogen-nitrogen mixture) are involved. The case study demonstrates how measures of total input and total output can be applied and analyses the performance of the plant over a 15-month period in terms of a variety of managerial control ratios.