Keeping priorities: the role of working memory and selective attention in cognitive aging

Cognitive aging is associated with impairments to working memory and top-down control in selective attention, two components of cognitive control associated with the frontal lobes. Recent findings indicate that working memory and selective attention may be interdependent, making a better understanding of their involvement in cognitive aging particularly challenging. A paper in a recent issue of Nature Neuroscience has provided evidence that a reduction in the ability to keep a clear distinction between information to be stored in working memory and information that should be ignored and subsequently suppressed is associated with poor working memory performance. These results are in line with previous evidence for a specific age-related impairment in the ability to separate irrelevant from relevant information and may be able to explain a range of age-related cognitive changes.     

Political Modernisation and Policy Arrangements: A Framework for Understanding Environmental Policy Change

Since its emergence in the early seventies, the environmental policy domain has substantially changed in terms of its content, organisation and instrumentation. Hitherto these changes have been studied primarily as strategic responses of the actors involved. This article aims to conceive recent changes in environmental policies in terms of political modernisation on the one hand, and in terms of the renewal of policy arrangements on the other. Political modernisation refers to structural processes of changing interrelations between state, market and civil society, and to new conceptions and practices of governance. Policy arrangements refer to the substance and the organisation of policy domains in terms of policy discourses, coalitions, rules of the game and resources. This analytical framework aims to do justice to policy dynamics caused by both strategic and structural factors. It therefore provides new perspectives on the understanding of recent changes in environmental policy and also proves to be helpful in improving those policies. Professor Bas Arts holds the chair of the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Professor Pieter Leroy holds the chair of the Department of Political Sciences of the Environment at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Dr. J.P.M. van Tatenhove is Associate Professor at the Environmental Policy Group of Wageningen University, the Netherlands.     

Concepts of Risk in Relation to Organizational Structure and Functioning within the Personal Social Services and Probation

The main argument of this paper is that personal social services, including probation, at both a policy and practice level are increasingly focused on issues of risk. We postulate that risk assessment, risk management, the monitoring of risk and risk-taking itself are rapidly becoming the dominant raison d'être of such agencies, thus supplanting ideologies of meeting need or welfare provision. In turn they have become key to priority setting and rationing, the basis for organizational rationales and structures, the central focus for professional activity and accountability, and measuring quality. Thus an analysis of risk as an organizing principle offers fundamental insights into the rapidly changing nature and organization of statutory social work and probation. There is very little literature that focuses on risk across the spectrum of services. Risk analysis, as such, is most developed in the criminal justice and child protection fields. However, the mental health literature, being centrally preoccupied with notions of dangerousness, is quickly adopting risk terminology. Apart from work on elder abuse, literature on child welfare and community care has been framed in terms of need, issues of risk only coming to the fore around potential admission to residential care. We contend that as issues of rationing and accountability become more dominant, so do concerns with risk. Thus we predict the extension of notions of risk as central organizing principles throughout the social services and probation.     

Some neglected determinants of welfare functions

The welfare concept is central to economics and to some topical problems, requiring interdisciplinary research. Psychology, biology and pedagogics may be important contributors. Economists have overemphasized economic, and among these consumption, aspects. A learning process to reduce unhealthy consumption remains topical. On the production side the diversity of labor types has been neglected. Here a central problem is job choice by maximizing welfare. Variables needed are capabilities required by jobs and personality traits. We ignore the number of independent characteristics. Path analysis with inherited and learnable traits may be extended by data on grandparents and on non-cognitive capabilities. A more precise production function of education is badly lacking. Two methods of measuring welfare functions and the shape of the latter are discussed.     

Transracial adoption and foster care placement: worker perception and attitude

This study explores black child welfare workers' perceptions of transracial adoption (TRA) and foster care placement (FCP). Informants were asked to discuss their attitudes toward the placement of black children with white families, as well as their perception of the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and the supplemental Interethnic Adoption Provision of 1996. This study expands existing research regarding the viability of TRA and FCP by incorporating the previously ignored perceptions of social service professionals who are charged with the responsibility of providing child and family services. Findings illuminate the significant role that prioritization of client need plays in the perceptions of workers.     

Mehrperiodige Bewertung mit dem Tax-CAPM und Kapitalkostenkonzept

Zusammenfassung  Aus der Empfehlung des IDW, die für die Unternehmensbewertung mittels der DCF-Verfahren erforderlichen Kapitalkosten aus dem einperiodigen Tax-CAPM abzuleiten, ergibt sich die Notwendigkeit, dieses Modell mehrperiodig anzuwenden. Sowohl die hierzu erforderlichen Pr?missen als auch die Struktur der aus der mehrperiodigen Anwendung resultierenden Bewertungsgleichungen sind bislang ungekl?rt. Der vorliegende Beitrag spezifiziert ein mehrperiodiges Tax-CAPM, welches zur Bewertung mehrperiodiger stochastischer Cash-Flows bei differenzierter Besteuerung von Zinsen, Dividenden und Wert?nderungen eingesetzt werden kann. Die aus der Anwendung dieses Modells resultierenden Bewertungsgleichungen erm?glichen die Abbildung sowohl des Risikos als auch der Besteuerung einer durch den Kapitalmarkt bestimmten Alternativanlage mittels deterministischer Diskontierungsfaktoren, welche die Kapitalkosten der zu bewertenden Cash-Flows darstellen. Unter den restriktiven Pr?missen des vorliegenden Modells ist es demnach m?glich, die Einkommensbesteuerung der Kapitalgeber konsistent in die DCF-Verfahren zu integrieren. Der Autor dankt zwei anonymen Gutachtern der ZfB für wertvolle Hinweise und Verbesserungsvorschl?ge.     

论空置商品房的处置对策

阐述商品房大量空置的成因及危害 ,提出消化空置商品房的对策。     

A new age of old age?: Gerotranscendence and the re-enchantment of aging

Gerotranscendence theory is reviewed regarding its content, development, diffusion, impact, empirical results, and ontology. Gerotranscendence theory describes a “natural” alteration of consciousness in old age leading to “wisdom” and a qualitative break with a mid-life rational and materialist world-view. According to the theory, gerotranscendence is obstructed by a lack of alternative values and roles in old age in Western societies. Theoretically and in clinical practice, gerotranscendence theory has been linked to psychoanalysis. It is concluded that gerotranscendence theory is empirically weak, has parallels in the New Age movement as well as in romantic Orientalism, and can be understood as an attempt to re-enchant aging.     

Social Budgeting in Transition Economies

The first part of this paper portrays social budgeting as a pivotal tool in national social governance. The second explains the meaning of social budgeting, which, essentially, consists of two elements: a database and a set of interdependent tools for projecting social protection revenue and expenditure. The third part discusses the particular needs of the transition economies with respect to the financial planning of social protection, and it is argued that countries need models for social budgeting as a technical, non-ideological tool in order to prudently run social protection systems which are income redistribution mechanisms of potentially vast dimensions. The fourth part broadly explains the modular structure of the model, the advantage of this structure being that modules can intelligently be used as stand-alone submodels. It also further discusses the particular advantages of social budgeting in countries in transition and includes a number of examples of technical adjustments that would have to be made to the model structure when applying it in the context of transitional economies. The two main reasons for such adjustments are identified as the fast change of their socio-economic fabric over the past decade and the (related) changes in the collection and flow of data. The fifth part briefly presents social budget modelling projects implemented in central and eastern Europe, particularly focusing on the examples of Ukraine and Poland. Scenario simulations and policy experiments are presented and discussed. The conclusions summarize the advantages of social budgeting, using the ILO Social Budget Model (or a variant of it) in national and international contexts, and indicate the conditions required for successful implementation.     

信息社会下的民法典——兼论法典化之时代使命

一如两百年前一样,人们似乎依旧习惯于仰仗国家来统筹整理法律,并借助综合性法典来展现法律。文章将探讨这种信赖在法典编纂中的合理性。文章着力论证,在信息化时代,法典编纂的法律信息供给功能可以借由比依赖国家创设法律体系更好的方式予以实现。信息化社会使得法律渊源具有多元性,并赋予了市民选择法律来经营生活的可能性。从传统来说,大陆法系以及普通法系国家在编纂法典以实现法律信息的系统化供给方面的经验表明,这些法典化活动能够满足当时的法律信息管理需要,但是传统的法律编纂方式却难以应对信息化社会的挑战。这促使法律需要以不同的姿态面向大众——在国家编纂法典或法律科学的形式之外,借助多元的可供受众选择的法律信息管理模式。