Recycling bins, garbage cans or think tanks? Three myths regarding policy analysis institutes

The phrase 'think tank' has become ubiquitous – overworked and underspecified – in the political lexicon. It is entrenched in scholarly discussions of public policy as well as in the 'policy wonk' of journalists, lobbyists and spin-doctors. This does not mean that there is an agreed definition of think tank or consensual understanding of their roles and functions. Nevertheless, the majority of organizations with this label undertake policy research of some kind. The idea of think tanks as a research communication 'bridge' presupposes that there are discernible boundaries between (social) science and policy. This paper will investigate some of these boundaries. The frontiers are not only organizational and legal; they also exist in how the 'public interest' is conceived by these bodies and their financiers. Moreover, the social interactions and exchanges involved in 'bridging', themselves muddy the conception of 'boundary', allowing for analysis to go beyond the dualism imposed in seeing science on one side of the bridge, and the state on the other, to address the complex relations between experts and public policy

Instances and connectors : issues for a second generation process language

This work is supported by UK EPSRC grants GR/L34433 and GR/L32699Over the past decade a variety of process languages have been defined, used and evaluated. It is now possible to consider second generation languages based on this experience. Rather than develop a second generation wish list this position paper explores two issues: instances and connectors. Instances relate to the relationship between a process model as a description and the, possibly multiple, enacting instances which are created from it. Connectors refers to the issue of concurrency control and achieving a higher level of abstraction in how parts of a model interact. We believe that these issues are key to developing systems which can effectively support business processes, and that they have not received sufficient attention within the process modelling community. Through exploring these issues we also illustrate our approach to designing a second generation process language.Postprin

Psychogenic non epileptic seizures : towards an integration of psychogenic, cognitive and neurobiological aspects

Psychogenic Non Epileptic Seizures (PNES) are defined as paroxysmal involuntary behavioral patterns that mimic epileptic events –covering the full range of hypo-motor events to hyper-motor manifestations– but that lack ictal epileptiform activity in the brain. PNES cannot be fully explained by any known neurological or other somatic diseases and are thought to be mediated by psychological factors (WHO, 1993; APA, 1994). PNES are characterized by a sudden and time-limited alteration of consciousness and are associated with a disturbance in controlling cognitive, behavioral and/or emotional functions (Kuyk et al., 1999)LEI Universiteit LeidenFSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and psychopathology - ou

Basal cortisol is positively correlated to threat vigilance in patients with

Wetensch. publ. refereedFaculteit der Sociale Wetenschappe

Re-visiting Meltsner: Policy Advice Systems and the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Professional Policy Analysis

10.2139/ssrn.15462511-2

Basal cortisol is positively correlated to threat vigilance in patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and Psychopathology - Ou

When emotions matter: focusing on emotion improves working memory updating in older adults

Research indicates that emotion can affect the ability to monitor and replace content in working memory, an executive function that is usually referred to as updating. However, it is less clear if the effects of emotion on updating vary with its relevance for the task and with age. Here, 25 younger (20–34 years of age) and 25 older adults (63–80 years of age) performed a 1-back and a 2-back task, in which they responded to younger, middle-aged, and older faces showing neutral, happy or angry expressions. The relevance of emotion for the task was manipulated through instructions to make match/non-match judgments based on the emotion (i.e., emotion was task-relevant) or the age (i.e., emotion was task-irrelevant) of the face. It was found that only older adults updated emotional faces more readily compared to neutral faces as evidenced by faster RTs on non-match trials. This emotion benefit was observed under low-load conditions (1-back task) but not under high-load conditions (2-back task) and only if emotion was task-relevant. In contrast, task-irrelevant emotion did not impair updating performance in either age group. These findings suggest that older adults can benefit from task-relevant emotional information to a greater extent than younger adults when sufficient cognitive resources are available. They also highlight that emotional processing can buffer age-related decline in WM tasks that require not only maintenance but also manipulation of material

Trauma, stress, and preconscious threat processing in patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and Psychopathology - Ou

The effects of social stress and cortisol responses on the preconscious selective attention to social threat.

CKC