Reward‐Modulated Response Inhibition,Cognitive Shifting,and the Orbital Frontal Cortex in Early Adolescence

Immaturities in cognitive shifting are associated with adolescent risk behaviors. The orbital frontal cortex (OFC) regulates reward processing and response inhibition. This study tested the relationship between cognitive shifting, OFC activity, and reward‐modulated response inhibition in young adolescents. An fMRI antisaccade (AS) paradigm examined the effects of reward conditions on inhibitory response and OFC processing. A validated self‐report inventory assessed cognitive shifting. Compared with neutral, reward trials showed better AS performance and increased OFC activation. Cognitive shifting positively associated with AS performance in reward and neutral trials. Poorer cognitive shifting predicted greater OFC activation. Results indicate lower OFC efficiency, as greater activation to achieve correct performance, underlies cognitive shifting problems. These neurocognitive impairments are relevant for understanding adolescent risk behaviors.     

Validation of a Brief Yesterday Measure of Hedonic Well-Being and Daily Activities: Comparison with the Day Reconstruction Method

There has been increasing interest in the measurement of hedonic well-being (HWB), due in part to its broad implications in areas such as health and society. The day reconstruction method (DRM) is a validated technique assessing HWB and daily activities using instructions that help respondents recover their experiences from the previous day, thus reducing recall bias. Unfortunately, large-scale surveys are typically not able to implement the time-consuming DRM procedure; instead, they rely on single-item or very brief questionnaire assessment of HWB and time usage. Despite their wide use, brief questionnaires have rarely been compared to the DRM, which could provide validation of these short assessments. In the present study we compared these two questionnaire formats in 45 adults who completed both a DRM and a “hybrid” short form (HSF) questionnaire that included a very brief procedure to reconstruct yesterday’s events. Results were that the mean HSF ratings tended to overestimate HWB in comparison to the DRM, though effects were generally small to moderate. With regard to estimates of time spent on daily activities, the HSF also differed from the DRM, though with generally small to moderate effects. Correlations between estimates indicated that the HSF explained an average of almost half the variance in the DRM ratings for both HWB (rs ranging from .52 to .97) and time use (rs ranging from .43 to .85). In general, HSF ratings displayed considerable overlap with those of the DRM though the brief instructions apparently did not eliminate recall bias in the shorter questionnaire.     

Gestaltung internetbasierter kollaborativer Team- und Projektarbeit

In order to support team and project work in companies, Internet-based collaboration software tools are increasingly being used. These software tools enable employees located within and outside the organization to communicate, share knowledge and data, and organize projects. Whether these benefits can be actualized depends on how the collaboration software is designed. As an orientation for the effective use of collaboration software tools, the present paper presents a design model for spatially distributed collaborative work and demonstrates its suitability based on a practical example. Therefore, we exemplarily show design activities and problems of the practical example and locate them within the model. Despite an extensive technical acumen and diverse design work, we identify problems with the use of collaboration tools. They focus on five problem areas: (1) parallel use of collaboration software tools, (2) transparency in terms of change, (3) the high rate of virtual meetings, (4) the onboarding process, and (5) the dilemma between the daily business and the implementation of internal IT projects.     

Explaining Different Paths in Social Health Insurance Countries – Health System Change and Cross‐border Lesson‐drawing between Germany,Austria and the Netherlands

The issues of ‘policy diffusion’ or ‘policy transfer’ and ‘mutual learning’ have become important topics in comparative research on social policy and health systems. In current debates on explaining reform in ‘Bismarckian’ social (health) insurance systems, however, these issues have been neglected. In particular, the role of ‘negative lesson‐drawing’ in the sense of avoiding mistakes of others has not often been considered. This article compares health system change in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, three countries with health systems of the social insurance type. In contrast to the existing literature, our analysis stresses that these countries have taken different reform paths since the 1990s. By applying a most similar systems design, we analyze how far cross‐border lesson‐drawing has contributed to health system divergence in the three countries. The empirical basis of the analysis is semi‐structured qualitative expert interviews, a method appropriate for tracing processes of lesson‐drawing. We argue that in order to fully understand the diverging reform trajectories, we need to take into account how political decision‐makers refer to (negative) experiences of other countries. Generally, national driving forces for health system change were at the heart of many crucial reforms during the period studied. Nevertheless, we claim that it was the German bad practice role model that kept the reform paths of Austria and Germany apart in the Austrian health reform discussion between 2000 and 2005.     

Fleet Replacement,Technology Choice,and the Option to Breach a Leasing Contract

We analyze the option to breach a leasing contract when replacing a fleet of ICVs (internal combustion engine vehicles) and EVs (electric vehicles) subject to cost uncertainty. We derive the optimal policy for technology choice and breaching ICV contracts. The decision to breach is shown to offer both cost savings resulting from reduced ICV operating costs and preemptive acquisition, but incurs additional costs arising from the need to compensate for breached vehicles and in the form of opportunity costs. We also demonstrate that the effects of breaching a leasing contract have a ripple effect across the decision horizon, thus amplifying the impact of a single breach. A numerical study based on data from La Poste, the French postal service, shows that breaching a leasing contract in this context offers measurable cost benefits.     

Welfare Regimes and Welfare Opinions: a Comparison of Eight Western Countries

Social Indicators Research -     

Class, Attitudes and the Welfare State: Sweden in Comparative Perspective

One of the most important arenas for contemporary class politics is the welfare state. In this article, attitudes towards welfare policies among different classes in Sweden are compared with other Western countries and over time. In the first part of the article, attitudes towards state intervention among different classes are compared across four Western countries: Sweden, Germany, Britain and the USA. The data come from the 1996 survey on “The Role of Government” conducted within the International Social Survey Programme. In the second part of the article, more detailed national data sets are used in order to track developments within Sweden from the early 1980s until 2002. Attitudes towards welfare spending, financing of welfare policies and service delivery are used to track developments of class differences in attitudes over time. It is concluded (a) that class differences are particularly large in Sweden, and (b) that changes over time indicate stability in overall class differences, combined with changes in attitudes among non‐manual employees. The implications of the results for recent arguments about the restructuring of class relations and the impact of welfare policies on stratification are discussed.