Hard choices: targeting long-term care to the "at risk" aged

Recent expansion of Medicaid coverage to home- and community-based long-term care moves that payment program away from its traditional institutional bias. But tension over the appropriate role of home care and fears of budget-busting have caused the current administration to set goals for the states that may be impossible to achieve.     

Bread and roses: Justice and the distribution of financial and socioemotional rewards in organizations

Two studies tested the hypothesis that organizational decision makers attempt to counterbalance contribution-based distributions of financial/material rewards (a “merit” system that creates monetary inequality) with need- and equality-based allocations of socioemotional rewards, in effect allocating “roses” in lieu of more “bread”. Experiment 1 had a two-factor design (Reward Type × Magnitude of Income Inequality); 67 subjects were given a managerial in-basket exercise in which they expressed their preferences for a variety of distributive justice rules for seven different types of rewards. Experiment 2 (N=39) had the same design, with a stronger manipulation of magnitude of inequality. Results of the two experiments were consistent with the counterbalancing hypothesis, irrespective of magnitude of income inequality; financially related rewards (e.g., profit sharing, office space, company cars) were distributed with more emphasis on contribution rules (i.e., performance, status), while more socioemotional rewards (e.g., help for an employee's spouse, friendliness) were allocated with more emphasis on equality among individuals, equality across groups, and personal need.     

The intergenerational transmission of aggression across three generations

This study examined the intergenerational transmission of aggression across three generations in 181 community families. Regression analyses were conducted to assess the extent to which child abuse and marital abuse in the family-of-origin (G1) are predictive of child abuse potential and marital aggression in the second generation (G2), abuse in the family-of-origin is predictive of aggression in the third generation (G3), and child abuse potential and marital aggression in the second generation are predictive of aggression in the third generation. For males, exposure to aggression was predictive of aggressive behavior across all three generations. For females, the only significant prediction was from marital aggression in G1 to husband-to-wife marital aggression in G2. This study points to the importance of examining the transmission of both child abuse and marital aggression in order to assess their relative importance. It is also recommended that the transmission of aggression be assessed separately for males and females, as the data point to the family system as a factor related to aggression in males, yet do not provide the same explanation for females.     

Electrocution accident with three-week survival]

A 55-year-old man was found unconscious with ventricular fibrillations at his working place near a power press. CPR was successful. After three weeks of intensive care the patient died of ischemic brain damage. The first suspected diagnosis of myocardial infarction was revised when typical current marks were detected on both palms. At the working place the top of a lubricating grease container was found to be energized due to a technical damage: There is a round, multiple-pole plug mounted upon the container top the proper orientation of which is coded by a set of five plastic nipples. All the nipples had been abraded by longlasting mechanical stress, so that the plug could be connected in a variety of possible orientations. In actual fact, the incorrect orientation caused a voltage of up to 240 V to the container top.