Die andere Demenz: Morbus Pick

Frontotemporale Demenzen sind schwer zu erkennen — Im Unterschied zur Alzheimer Demenz bleiben bei einer Frontotemporalen Demenz das Erinnerungsverm?gen und der Orientierungssinn lange erhalten. Diese Form der Demenz ?u?ert sich vielmehr in gravierenden Pers?nlichkeitsver?nderungen, die es vor allem in der Pflege aufzufangen gilt.     

The service climate‐firm performance chain: The role of customer retention

This study examines the role of customer retention as a mediator in the service climate–firm performance chain. Using a predictive design that involves data collected from 1,500 automotive service stores from 12,518 employees and approximately 30,000 customers, a model linking service climate (a concern for employees and customers), customer satisfaction, customer retention, and firm performance was tested. Notably, the results support the overall model and the hypothesized mediating effect of customer retention regarding the relationship between customer satisfaction and firm performance. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Der Vielfalt eine zweite Chance?

Television program diversity has been widely discussed since the introduction of the dual broadcasting system in Germany. «A chance for diversity...» was the title of the program study by Schatz/Immer/Marcinkowsky (1989), who proposed the hypothesis of convergence. This hypothesis postulates that public and private programs converge due to the built-in competition between the public and private television systems. In this paper we discuss the phenomenon of diversity and differentiate between internal (concerning the program content of one channel) and external diversity (related to the program content of several channels within a broadcasting system). We conducted a quantitative content analysis of TV program guides. Based on four different classification systems (program- and audience-oriented, format- and content-oriented), we analysed internal and external diversity in a longitudinal study. Results show an overall constant level of diversity. Especially external diversity is consistently high. Within channels, we found diversity shifts. Public programs show a slightly reduced diversity; specialized channels, on the other hand, increased their diversity. The analytic tools employed in our study and its results can contribute to the development of empirically measurable quality criteria for program development.     

Understanding Society: minimising selection biases in data collection using mobile apps

Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study has a programme of research and development that underpins innovations in data collection methods. One of our current focuses is on using mobile applications to collect additional data that supplement data collected in annual interviews. To date, we have used mobile apps to collect data on consumer expenditure, well-being, anthropometrics and cognition. In this paper, we review the potential barriers to data collection using mobile apps and experimental evidence collected with the Understanding Society Innovation Panel, on what can be done to reduce these barriers.     

Backing what works? Social Impact Bonds and evidence-informed policy and practice

ABSTRACT

Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) offer an opportunity to explore the use of evidence to inform public policy and commissioning decisions in both discursive and practical terms in what are frequently highly politicized contexts. We identify three potential mechanisms by which SIBs may promote evidence use and explore these through empirical findings drawn from a three-year evaluation of SIBs applied to health and social care in the English NHS.     

The Effects of Key Audit Matters on the Auditor’s Report’s Communicative Value: Experimental Evidence from Investment Professionals and Non-professional Investors

Abstract

We investigate the effect of key audit matters (KAM) in the auditor’s report as required by the new ISA 701. We consider investment professionals and non-professional investors in our experiments, in which we test the communicative value of a KAM section relating to goodwill impairment. Our main results show that in the condition in which the KAM section suggests that already small changes in the key assumptions could eventually lead to a goodwill impairment (KAM negative condition), investment professionals assess the economic situation of the company to be significantly better as compared to the condition in which the KAM section suggests that only large changes in the key assumptions could eventually lead to a goodwill impairment (KAM positive condition). In the additional analysis with non-professional investors, we find that a KAM section has no communicative value, implying that non-professional investors have difficulties with processing the information conveyed with KAM.     

Investing in public investment: an index of public investment efficiency

Pritchett (J Econ Growth 5:361?C384, 2000) convincingly argued that the difference between investment cost and capital value is of first-order empirical importance especially for developing countries where public investment is the primary source of investment. This paper constructs a public investment efficiency index that captures the institutional environment underpinning public investment management across four different stages: project appraisal, selection, implementation, and evaluation. Covering 71 countries, including 40 low-income countries, the index allows for benchmarking across regions and country groups and for nuanced policy-relevant analysis and identification of specific areas where reform efforts could be prioritized. Research applications are outlined.     

Trust generated by aid agency web page design

• Two experiments examined how material presented on an aid agency web homepage influenced perceptions of trust in the organisation. Experiment 1 manipulated whether the agency's homepage showed photographs of a crisis-need, photographs of the crisis-need and the agency's response or photographs of the agency's response. Experiment 2 held the crisis-need-response information constant, but manipulated information on the proportion of donated funds which the agency used to cover administration versus those used to deliver services. In both experiments the participants' dispositional (personality) level of trust and altruism was significantly related to rated trust in the charity. Analysis of covariance was used to control for dispositional trust and altruism, and found that the manipulations in both experiments produced significant changes in rated agency trust. The results are discussed in relation to designing aid agency web pages, and to encouraging individuals to make on-line donations.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.