Service to servitude? The decline and demise of life-cycle service in England

Life-cycle service was an essential institution in early-modern England that slowly died during the transition from a pre-industrial to a fully industrial economy. A socially pervasive and culturally broad movement of young people from their parental homes to live and serve in the homes of others, life-cycle service was integral to the demographic, economic, and social framework of the era and could not survive when that framework changed. This article examines the institution of life-cycle service, some of the underlying demographic, economic, and social structure that supported it, the changes in that structure that led to its demise, and the ramifications for young people of that demise. Although inevitable, the loss of life-cycle service with its broad social base denigrated service as an institution and was not without other costs especially for young women.     

Surprise Moves in Negotiation

In a game-theoretic model of a negotiation, a surprise move always has the potential to create uncertainty. This uncertainty can be beneficial to just the player making the move, or it can be beneficial to all the players involved. Moreover, there are situations in which a surprise move can change the very nature of the interactions. In particular, if the interactions follow specified procedures, the surprise move can reduce the effect of the procedures on the outcome. By showing that these results hold in the precisely defined world of game theory, it is argued that they are applicable in the more ambiguous world of real negotiations. At a broader level, the game-theoretic results imply that there is a sense in which the context can never be known for sure. The results also imply that the uncertainty created by surprise moves can be strategically useful.     

Renal artery bullet embolism.

Bullet embolism is a well-recognized phenomenon. While bullet embolism is not common, renal artery bullet embolism appears to be very rare. We report three cases of bullet embolism to a renal artery. Autopsy findings and bullet types are presented. Such cases are of particular interest to both the medical examiner and the clinician. Failure to consider this phenomenon clinically could lead to infarction of a kidney. A consideration of this phenomenon at autopsy could shorten the dissection time required to retrieve the bullet.     

Systems approaches to urban planning: Mixed,conditional, adaptive and other alternatives

Systems approaches possess an ability to deal with large numbers of interacting variables and relations. They are here connected tocitizen information systems (distinguished frommanagement information systems) and to mixed, adaptive, conditional models for urban planning. The latter permit flexible and continuing responses to dynamically changing urban conditions, including citizen attitudes and reactions, as well as to changing economics and technologies. These models are mixed in that they allow actions and reactions from a multiplicity of decisionmakers. The resulting decisions are made only conditionally, rather than once-and-for-all, on a comprehensive basis as in the customary master city plan. Proceeding in this conditional manner, the model then permits adaptation to changing values and objectives as, at each stage, it makes the systems consequences apparent.The systems approach is related to a host of important methodological developments in mathematics, statistics, etc., as well as in electronic computers and their use. These distinguish modern systems approaches from predecessors like the holism of Jan Christiaan Smuts and others in pre-war science. The mixed, conditional, adaptive models suggested here are compared with other approaches like advocacy planning, the comprehensive master city plan and ad hoc planning. It is found to be possible at least in principle, to accommodate all of these and even to extend matters further to include day-to-day as well as longer range facilities plans in the indicated systems approach by virtue of the improved methodologies that may now be used or developed for these purposes.This paper was prepared for presentation before the Division 1 (General), American Psychological Association Meetings in Miami Beach, Florida on September 5, 1970.Also, Joint Urban Sciences Information Institute, Research Report No. 5.     

Politics of E‐Government: E‐Government and the Political Control of Bureaucracy

This case study reports an innovative e‐government experiment by a local government in Seoul, South Korea—Gangnam‐gu. A new local political leadership in Gangnam made strategic use of e‐government applications to exert greater political control over the local civil service bureaucracy. The authors find that e‐government applications possess political properties that can be applied effectively by the political leadership as instruments to improve control over the government bureaucracy as well as to enhance essential government accountability and transparency. The political circumstances underlying e‐government development as well as its impact on local government are reported, along with key variables associated with this innovation and directions for future research.