Whither human survival and longevity or the shape of things to come

With the continuing increases in life expectancy, populations are ageing rapidly. Governments are concerned for the future of pensions and health care for which population forecasts are an important component for planning purposes. In this paper we focus on human survival rather than mortality rates which are the more usual starting point when estimating future populations. Using a simple model we link basic measures of life expectancy to the shape of the human survival function and consider its various forms. We then use the simple model as the basis for investigating actual survival in England and Wales from 1841 onwards and investigate the concept of a ‘maximum age’. We show how the model can be used in a predictive sense and demonstrate in two tests that show our model would have given more accurate results than comparable government forecasts using the same base information. We then go on to show that, based on trends in life expectancy, official population forecasts could undershoot the population at age 50+ by 0.6m, with consequent financial implications for pensions, health and social care

Enemies of the Nation or Human Rights Defenders? Fighting Poverty Wages in Bangladesh

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ilrf_enemiesofthenation.pdf: 346 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

In There or Up Front? : An Introduction to Bottom-Line Human Resource Management

This essay explains to managers and academics a new approach to human resource management, what I call “Bottom-Line Human Resource Management.” Bottom-line human resource management starts by positing clear organizational goals, and in this way differs from strategic human resource management, which starts with analysis of the organization’s human resource strategy. Organizational goals are easily classified; managers cannot manage well unless they know which class of organization they are working in. Not all decisions have right and wrong answers but some do. Managers will earn a seat at the table if they are able to make correct decisions in these cases and to ask correct questions the rest of the time. By embracing their organization’s goals, using sound decision criteria, and conveying their decisions in jargon-free English, managers will be valued partners

Reclaiming human machine nature

Extending and modifying his domain of life by artifact production is one of the main characteristics of humankind. From the first hominid, who used a wood stick or a stone for extending his upper limbs and augmenting his gesture strength, to current systems engineers who used technologies for augmenting human cognition, perception and action, extending human body capabilities remains a big issue. From more than fifty years cybernetics, computer and cognitive sciences have imposed only one reductionist model of human machine systems: cognitive systems. Inspired by philosophy, behaviorist psychology and the information treatment metaphor, the cognitive system paradigm requires a function view and a functional analysis in human systems design process. According that design approach, human have been reduced to his metaphysical and functional properties in a new dualism. Human body requirements have been left to physical ergonomics or "physiology". With multidisciplinary convergence, the issues of "human-machine" systems and "human artifacts" evolve. The loss of biological and social boundaries between human organisms and interactive and informational physical artifact questions the current engineering methods and ergonomic design of cognitive systems. New developpment of human machine systems for intensive care, human space activities or bio-engineering sytems requires grounding human systems design on a renewed epistemological framework for future human systems model and evidence based "bio-engineering". In that context, reclaiming human factors, augmented human and human machine nature is a necessityComment: Published in HCI International 2014, Heraklion : Greece (2014

On the Interface Between Operations and Human Resources Management

Operations management (OM) and human resources management (HRM) have historically been very separate fields. In practice, operations managers and human resource managers interact primarily on administrative issues regarding payroll and other matters. In academia, the two subjects are studied by separate communities of scholars publishing in disjoint sets of journals, drawing on mostly separate disciplinary foundations. Yet, operations and human resources are intimately related at a fundamental level. Operations are the context that often explains or moderates the effects of human resource activities such as pay, training, communications and staffing. Human responses to operations management systems often explain variations or anomalies that would otherwise be treated as randomness or error variance in traditional operations research models. In this paper, we probe the interface between operations and human resources by examining how human considerations affect classical OM results and how operational considerations affect classical HRM results. We then propose a unifying framework for identifying new research opportunities at the intersection of the two fields

ICTs and Family Physicians Human Capital Upgrading.Delightful Chimera or Harsh Reality?

In the present paper we provide a quantitative assessment of ICTs role in Family Physicians/General Practitioners (GPs) medical daily practice and scientific performance. It focus on the Portuguese underexplored context, where the Health Sector has been under pressure for wide and profound reforms. These reforms have been extensively relying on ICTs, namely on the Internet. Based on the responses of 342 GPs, we concluded that 94% uses the Internet and 57% agrees that the Internet is essential to their medical daily practice. This is a slightly lower percentage than that observed for other European physicians (62%). GPs tend to use the Internet mainly for professional purposes. On average, they spend 10 hours/week on the Internet for professional purposes. Further data shows that to have or to be enrolled in advanced training fosters the use of the Internet for professional purposes, which in its turn, tends to grant GPs access to more and up-to-date information and knowledge on these matters. A worrisome evidence is that at the workplace, a substantial proportion of GPs (over 70%) do not use the Internet or other related ICTs, namely Telemedicine. Although Electronic Prescription is used by roughly 60% of the respondent GPs, for all other activities – teleconsultation, telediagnosis, and telemonitoring – only a meagre percentage of physicians (10%) claim to use such technologies. Thus, Telemedicine at the workplace is still a chimera. Notwithstanding such dishearten scenario, our data shows that the Internet for the respondent GPs has a critical role on updating and improving their professional knowledge basis. They recognise, however, that the vast majority of GPs lack specific and general training in ICT-related technologies. In fact, half of them agree that they need to attend specific training actions on ICTs. A large percentage of GPs admitted that in the previous year they did not take any professional training targeting ICTs and those who did undertook rather short-term (less than one week) courses: Because of that, such training handicap uncovers that a large part of Portuguese GPs may be unable to reap the benefits of ICTs in their daily medical practice.GPs; Human Capital; Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

Freedom of the Will

The exact nature of the human will is, like the nature of human consciousness, a question so subjective and so interior that no one is ever likely to arrive at a satisfactory judgment about how it functions or even what it is-which may be the best proof that philosophy is not a science, and the best evidence that those social sciences which try to measure, quantify, and control aspects of human consciousness are not sciences either. Still, there is no denying that we are aware of a power or an impulse within us which transJates thought into action, or at least responds ·to perceptions of threat or opportunity. So even if we have difficulty in defining the will, most of us can acknowledge that there is something like that at work as part of human consciousness. [excerpt