Assessing the role of vocational rehabilitation in disability policy.

Since 1975, vocational rehabilitation has represented a small and declining component of federal disability policy. This trend is perhaps reflective of the relatively crude assessment techniques that have been applied to the program in the past. Using the Virginia Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) program as a prototype, we outline how the data and methods of assessment can be improved for purposes of directing public policy. The key issues include identifying an appropriate comparison group for VR, analysis of longitudinal earnings data, and methods for refining measures of program cost. The analysis provides "fixed-effects" estimates of net earnings impacts for each of three postprogram years stratified by disability classification and gender. These treatment impacts are compared to total and service-specific costs. In general, this analysis suggests that evaluation of VR can be substantially improved and that these improvements can be attained at relatively modest analytic cost.     

Ruptured cerebral artery aneurysm and bacterial meningitis in a man with osteogenesis imperfecta

This report describes a 38-year-old man with osteogenesis imperfecta who died of a ruptured cerebral artery aneurysm and bacterial meningitis. He had multiple long bone fractures in the past, and approximately 4 months before death, he had surgery to relieve symptoms of basilar impression. The surgery was complicated by a postoperative wound infection. For the next 4 months, he had intermittent headaches and vomiting. He was found dead in his bed at home. At autopsy, he had a ruptured anterior communicating artery aneurysm and bacterial meningitis. Cerebrospinal fluid and blood cultures had growth of Staphylococcus aureus. Osteogenesis imperfecta is a disorder of type I collagen. Type I collagen is present in many tissues, including blood vessels. The etiology of cerebral artery aneurysm formation is multifactorial. Some patients with cerebral artery aneurysms have been shown to have abnormalities in type III collagen. There has not been a reported relationship made between abnormalities in type I collagen and aneurysms. Meningitis can also result in cerebral artery aneurysms, but they are usually due to Aspergillus or Mycobacterium species. The case we report is unique; cerebral artery aneurysm formation may have been due to osteogenesis imperfecta and/or bacterial meningitis.     

Champions of local authority innovation revisited

This article revisits the concept of the public sector innovation champion. Reflecting changes in sectoral and wider contexts and conceptual advances in the innovation literature, it suggests that much of the underlying thinking behind the original article is of continuing relevance and suggests a number of directions in which this could now be extended, particularly in terms of the nature of innovation and the role of champions therein. It concludes by considering how innovation champions of the future will require a new skillset which draws on new and emergent technologies to align diverse sets of stakeholders in networks of ‘open innovation’.     

BETWEEN POSITIVISM AND POSTMODERNISM:

A growing body of scholarship has pointed to the problems of positivist assumptions that underlie policy analysis. Scholars have noted that neither the ends nor the methods by which judgments are derived are unambiguous or value-free. In the place of a positivist epistemology, some scholars have argued for a view of policy analysis as a rhetorical activity. In this view, the analyst becomes a participant in strategies of persuasion in-which the reasons for decisions are rhetorically constructed. Neither view, though, provides an adequate basis upon which the analyst is to form judgments that can claim public validity. In this essay, we draw on the work of Hannah Arendt whochallenges the distinction between “subjectivity” and “objectivity” upon which much of the contemporary debate hinges. Arendt argues for a notion of “impartiality” that arises from the imagining of other perspectives. In this way, the validity of judgments depends on a broadened perspective gained through a grasping of particulars. It is within this context that we can understand the importance of narratives in policy evaluation and judgment.     

欧盟最小化中小企业监管负担的做法及启示

中小企业是世界各国经济发展的支柱。全球金融危机对中小企业的发展产生了严重影响。为促进中小企业的发展,欧盟采取了切实措施,从法律、政策影响评估、市场环境改善等方面最小化中小企业的监管负担。随着金融危机的蔓延,中国的中小企业也面临严峻的发展环境,浙江等地中小企业倒闭数量大幅度上升,税负较重、融资渠道单一等是其倒闭的主要原因。应借鉴欧盟经验,采取综合政策措施,最小化企业的监管负担,促进其复苏发展。