Employee recognition: a key to motivation

Productivity--why it's low and how to enhance it--is on everyone's mind these days. A major component of productivity is employee satisfaction. If an employee is dissatisfied, feels unappreciated or under-compensated, that employee will not perform to the best of his or her ability. How is the personnel administrator to address this pressing problem? One answer that emerges is employee recognition programs. In many cases, properly run recognition programs can boost awareness of the organization, build employee pride, raise morale and, ultimately, increase productivity. As some of our respondents observed, higher salary is not the best answer. While a larger paycheck is always appreciated, everyone's pride is boosted by a public demonstration of appreciation.     

奥朗德：欧洲政治新风向

老人手 新面孔以“改变，就是现在”为口号的奥朗德成为继密特朗之后17年迎来的首位左翼社会党总统，而前总统萨科齐成为第11个因欧债危机下台的欧洲领导人。性格温和的奥朗德在国际政坛上并不知名，但在法国可喂是家喻户晓的政治人物。奥朗德1954年出生于法国西北部城市鲁昂的一个中产阶级家庭，父亲是名医生，     

Administering a victim impact curriculum to inmates: a multi-site replication

While restorative justice has been the topic of much research, a specific type of program included in restorative justice, Impact of Crime (IOC) on Victims programs, has not been widely studied or assessed for effectiveness. This study examines IOC on Victims Curriculum Development Programs. Offenders from programs in California, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia were participants in this research. A four-state evaluation methodology was developed in order to assess the effectiveness of these programs in educating offenders about victims’ right and victim facts, as well as increasing their sensitivity to victims’ difficulties. The findings in this evaluation lend support to previous studies, indicating efficacy for IOC programs. Suggestions for future research are briefly discussed.     

Competency to be a witness: a major child forensic issue

Competency of a child witness is a changing area of case law and forensic psychiatry practice. This article summarizes the basic legal and clinical aspects of determination of competency of the child witness to testify. Guidelines for such forensic examinations are detailed. Case examples are described that highlight major clinical issues in these examinations.     

The 1970s : Reply to a Discussion

We are all aware of the vast practical and scientific significance of the problem of studying and preventing crime and of researching its causes and the conditions giving rising to it. That is why one of the principal provisions of Soviet criminal procedure is the demand that the reasons and conditions making possible the commission of the crime be determined in each criminal case, and that measures be taken to eliminate them. But if the most characteristic, the most typical features in the development of criminality are to be discovered, and if its essential causes and conditions are to be determined (and this is a most important task of criminology), we cannot rely upon the study of individual cases and persons. Because these typical, essential characteristics in the realm of criminality manifest themselves in the form of statistical regularities, criminology must therefore make use of the statistical method on the very largest scale, i.e., it must base its conclusions upon mass-scale observations. "We must remember the rule," wrote Lenin, "that in social science... we deal with mass-scale phenomena and not individual cases." (1) Therefore, criminology, like the other social sciences, is required "to make broader and fuller use of the richest statistical material. For statistics, like concrete investigations, are the air without which science suffocates and is distorted into dead scholasticism." (2)     

Euthanasia: a reply to Bartels and Otlowski

This article counters arguments made by Bartels and Otlowski in 2010 regarding euthanasia. It suggests that the authors over-emphasised the importance of individual autonomy in its bearing on the euthanasia debate. Drawing on literature concerning elder abuse as well as the "mercy-killing" cases reviewed by Bartels and Otlowski, the article contends that legalising euthanasia may increase the risk that some patients are pressured, inadvertently or deliberately, to request access. Safeguards to detect and deter pressure may be of limited effectiveness against such pressure. Regarding slippery slope arguments, the article discusses the potential for an Australian euthanasia system to eventually be extended in scope to encompass mental suffering. The article encourages consideration of long-term potentialities, including changes in macro-economic conditions.     

Turning a Madhyamaka Trick: Reply to Huntington

Huntington (2007); argues that recent commentators (Robinson, 1957; Hayes, 1994; Tillemans, 1999; Garfield and Priest, 2002) err in attributing to Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti a commitment to rationality and to the use of argument, and that these commentators do violence to the Madhyamaka project by using rational reconstruction in their interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s and Candrakīrti’s texts. Huntington argues instead that mādhyamikas reject reasoning, distrust logic and do not offer arguments. He also argues that interpreters ought to recuse themselves from argument in order to be faithful to these texts. I demonstrate that he is wrong in all respects: Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti deploy arguments, take themselves to do so, and even if they did not, we would be wise to do so in commenting on their texts.     

Demographic aging: a notion to revisit.

"The article analyzes the concept of ?demographic aging', why ?age 60' (years) was chosen as a threshold for the start of ?aging', and how these notions have been applied in France. Since the nineteenth century, tremendous changes have occurred in the meaning of ?age 60', both in terms of the social and familial roles a person of that age is expected to play, and in terms of expectations regarding such persons' productivity. The author argues that the notions of ?demographic aging' and ?age 60' have been conducive to a negative portrayal of old age, have served as a hindrance in the development of social policy towards aged people, have played a role in reducing the number of active people over 55 years, and have reduced medical research on the processes of aging."