Patient-perceived effectiveness and impact on quality of life of solifenacin in combination with an α-blocker in men with overactive bladder in Sweden: a non-interventional study

Treating male lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) by targeting the prostate would have limited effect on overactive bladder (OAB) symptoms. This study assessed perceived symptoms and quality of life (QoL) of male patients with OAB treated with an α-blocker plus solifenacin in daily clinical practice. Male patients aged ≥40 years were included after the decision was made to initiate treatment with an α-blocker for LUTS plus solifenacin for OAB symptoms. The primary endpoint was change in patient perception of bladder condition (PPBC) questionnaire score over 6?months. Other assessments included the OAB-questionnaire short form (OAB-q SF) and International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS). Interpretation of the study data was hindered by not meeting the enrollment target and a high dropout rate. In 36 evaluable patients, mean (SD) PPBC score improved from 4.3 (0.93) at baseline (“moderate” to “severe” problems) to 3.5 (1.06) at month 6 (“minor” to “moderate” problems). OAB-q SF scores and total IPSS also improved. In this patient population, treatment with solifenacin and an α-blocker resulted in improvements in male patient perception of their LUTS and QoL, although the results should be interpreted with caution due to the low number of patients with complete data.     

An agent-based model for evaluating reforms of the National Flood Insurance Program: A benchmarked model applied to Jamaica Bay,NYC

Coastal flood risk is expected to increase as a result of climate change effects, such as sea level rise, and socioeconomic growth. To support policymakers in making adaptation decisions, accurate flood risk assessments that account for the influence of complex adaptation processes on the developments of risks are essential. In this study, we integrate the dynamic adaptive behavior of homeowners within a flood risk modeling framework. Focusing on building-level adaptation and flood insurance, the agent-based model (DYNAMO) is benchmarked with empirical data for New York City, USA. The model simulates the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and frequently proposed reforms to evaluate their effectiveness. The model is applied to a case study of Jamaica Bay, NY. Our results indicate that risk-based premiums can improve insurance penetration rates and the affordability of insurance compared to the baseline NFIP market structure. While a premium discount for disaster risk reduction incentivizes more homeowners to invest in dry-floodproofing measures, it does not significantly improve affordability. A low interest rate loan for financing risk-mitigation investments improves the uptake and affordability of dry-floodproofing measures. The benchmark and sensitivity analyses demonstrate how the behavioral component of our model matches empirical data and provides insights into the underlying theories and choices that autonomous agents make.     

Participatory Governance in Social Enterprise

This paper emphasizes the importance of participative governance in the study of social enterprise. Furthermore, it argues that social enterprise must be analyzed through a multi-dimensional perspective. The EMES approach is based on three dimensions emphasizing the social, economic, and political dimension, while many Anglo-American definitions tend to use a one-dimensional spectrum framework. The latter often see social enterprise as a simple phenomenon that can be arranged along a continuum, ranging from economic to social, where more of one means less of the other. However, this fails to acknowledge the multi-disciplinary nature of social enterprise. Scholars inspired by the EMES approach should devote greater attention to exploring the interactive and interrelated nature of the three dimensions of social enterprise, especially the governance dimension.     

Theoretical evaluation of prediction error in linear regression with a bivariate response variable containing missing data

Methods for linear regression with multivariate response variables are well described in statistical literature. In this study we conduct a theoretical evaluation of the expected squared prediction error in bivariate linear regression where one of the response variables contains missing data. We make the assumption of known covariance structure for the error terms. On this basis, we evaluate three well-known estimators: standard ordinary least squares, generalized least squares, and a James–Stein inspired estimator. Theoretical risk functions are worked out for all three estimators to evaluate under which circumstances it is advantageous to take the error covariance structure into account.     

The impossibility of loving: blanchot,community, sexual difference

This paper aims to clarify Blanchot's notion of community and his practice of communism through, first, an account of his involvement in the Events of May 1968 and, second, an exploration of The Unavowable Community, in which Blanchot reads a short novel by Marguerite Duras, which recounts the tropisms of a brief relationship between a young woman and a homosexual man. As I show, Blanchot's affirmation of what he calls “the impossibility of loving”, which emerges from his reading of Duras, is linked to what he calls “worklessness [désoeuvrement]”; that is, the active process of loosening or undoing that contests any attempt to establish a community around a shared essence. I will claim that it is by attending to the relationship to worklessness that one might attend to what Blanchot calls the “spaces of freedom” that open around us: to those happenings which are not enclosed by prevailing determinations of the social space. A further aim of this paper is to address the concerns of Jacques Derrida, for whom Blanchot's writings on community betray what he calls in Politics of Friendship a “schematic of filiation”, in which the relation to the brother is the privileged model for the relation to the Other. I also provide an account of Blanchot's negotiation of Levinas's account of the relationship between ethics and eros as it is presented in Totality and Infinity.     

Impact of the psychosocial work environment on registered absence from work: A two-year longitudinal study using the IPAW cohort

During the Intervention Project on Absence and Well-being (IPAW), a 5-year project conducted in Denmark, we investigated psychosocial work environment factors as independent predictors of the number of absence days per year. The present two-year longitudinal study used the IPAW cohort, but was not intended to study intervention effects, which will be reported later. Data were derived from baseline questionnaires and employers’ registers of absence for 1919 participants (1305 women, 614 men, mainly in low-skilled jobs) in different occupations from 52 workplaces. These workplaces included municipal care, municipal technical services and a large pharmaceutical company. Analyses were performed by Poisson regression accounting for over-dispersion. After controlling for age, family type, health behaviours and physical work environment variables, we found that high levels of decision authority predicted low absence rates in both women and men. We tested two new psychosocial constructs developed for this study: Predictability (relating to being informed on future events at work) and Meaning of Work (relating to how meaningful and useful the work is perceived to be). Higher Predictability was a significant predictor of lower absence rates in men. This study adds to the body of evidence that the psychosocial working environment influences absence and should therefore be considered to be an important target for intervention.     

Contextualising Fred Wander’s The Seventh Well

Between East and West: The Jews of Moscow, Kiev and Minsk. Robert J. Brym with the assistance of Rozalina Ryvkina, The Jews of Moscow, Kiev and Minsk: Identity, Antisemitism, Emigration, edited and with an introduction by Howard Spier. London: Macmillan and New York: New York University Press, both in association with the Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1994. 142 pp. Tables. Appendices. Illus. Name Index. Subject Index. £35.00 hardcover; $30.00 hardcover; $18.50 paperback.

A Jewish Ambassador at the Kremlin Court. Mordechai Altshuler, Yitshak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski (eds.), Sovetskiye evrei pishut llye Erenburgu 1943–1966 (Soviet Jews Write to llya Ehrenburg 1943–1966). Jerusalem: The Centre for Research and Documentation of East‐European Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, 1993. 539 pp. Bibl. Name and Subject Index. Paperback.

An Encouraging Start. Yakiv Suslensky, Spravzhni heroi: pro uchast hromadian Ukrainy u riatuvaniiyevreiv vid fashystskoho henotsydu (True Heroes: The Part Played by Ukrainian Citizens in Rescuing Jews from the Fascist Genocide). Ed. I. F. Kuras et al. Foreword by Leonid Kravchuk. Kiev: Tovarystvo ‘Ukraina’, 1993. 152 pp. Photographs. (Hromadiany Ukrainy—pravednyky svitu 1 (Ukrainian Citizens—Righteous of the World, Series, no. 1)). Paperback. Printrun 25,000. ISBN 5–87168–026–7.

The ‘Rational Core’ of Nazism. Ernst Nolte, Streitpunkte. Heutige und künftige Kontroversen um den Nafionalsozialismus. Berlin/Frankfurt (Main): Propyläen, 1993. 493 pp.

Volume on Hungarian Holocaust Updated. Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, revised and enlarged ed., 2 vols. New York: The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Boulder, Co: Social Science Monographs, 1994. 1,486 pp. Illus. Chronology. Index. $310.50; £155.00 hardcover. (Distributed by Columbia University Press.)

Gray Dawn or Swan Song?. Charles Hoffman, Gray Dawn: The Jews of Eastern Europe in the Post‐Communist Era. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. 349pp. Index. Selected bibliography. $25.00 hardcover.     

Whither pogromshchina – historiographical synthesis or deconstruction? 1

This historiographical discussion piece on the implication of Simon Petliura and the Directory in the pogroms during the ill‐fated struggle for Ukrainian independence between 1917 and 1920 focuses on four core issues. Firstly, it suggests that those committed to the current Ukrainian nation‐building agenda face a crucial paradox: for the Directory’s endeavours to qualify as a precedent in nation building, one has to talk up its ability to influence the developments in the territory under its control. Yet to get Petliura and the Directory off the hook as far as the pogroms are concerned, one has to talk down their ability to influence those same developments. Secondly, it fundamentally questions the juxtaposition of “Ukrainian” and “Jewish” approaches on which Henry Abramson’s claim to have achieved a new synthesis between these two positions hinges. Thirdly, it demonstrates just how crucial conceptual transparency is for any useful debate on the significance of antisemitism in this context. Finally, it revisits the contention that it is a priori implausible to hold Petliura and his colleagues responsible because their attitudes towards Jews were generally positive as demonstrated not least by their commitment to Jewish autonomy rights.     

Knowledge management and the missing tradition - on the role of tradition,knowledge and competencies in industrial production

The ideas of knowledge management, competence strategy and learning organisation have been dominating debates on organisational behaviour and management recently. This article argues that most contributions to this debate are based on a quite naïve conception of knowledge and competencies. One important problem is the neglect of tradition. Through an analysis of the conventional views of knowledge and competencies and through a rehabilitation of tradition the article shows how tradition can provide us with another conception of knowledge management and related ideas. Two case studies from small Danish manufacturing companies are presented in order to show how tradition functions even in the most modem organisations.