Centralized vs. decentralized computing : organizational considerations and management options

The long-standing debate over whether to centralize or decentralize computing is examined in terms of the fundamental organizational and economic factors at stake. The traditional debate is examined and found to focus predominantly on issues of efficiency vs. effectiveness, with solutions based on a rationalistic strategy of optimizing in this tradeoff. A more behavioralistic assessment suggests that the driving issues in the debate are the politics of organization and resources, centering on the issue of control. The economics of computing deployment decisions is presented as an important issue, but one that often serves as a field of argument that is based on more political concerns. The current situation facing managers of computing, given the advent of small and comparatively inexpensive computers, is examined in detail, and a set of management options for dealing with this persistent issue is presented

Social Democratic and Socialist Policies

In this Working Paper, also an entry for the International Encyclopedia of Public Policy, John King begins with a brief discussion of the meaning of ‘socialism’ and ‘social democracy,’ from their nineteenth-century origins down to the present day. He then discusses socialist economic policies under six headings: the case for public ownership; the importance of macroeconomic stability; the demands of social justice; arguments for tax reform; the need for environmental sustainability; and the obligation to exercise international responsibility. He concludes that socialist and social democratic policies offer a genuine intellectual alternative to neoliberalism.social democracy, economic policy

An index of fatal toxicity for new psychoactive substances

The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Journal of Psychopharmacology, February 2018, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.An index of fatal toxicity for new psychoactive substances has been developed based solely on information provided on death certificates. An updated index of fatal toxicity (T f), as first described in 2010, was calculated based on the ratio of deaths to prevalence and seizures for the original five substances (amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine/crack, heroin and 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine) *. These correlated well with the 2010 index. Deaths were then examined for cases both where the substance was and was not found in association with other substances. This ratio (sole to all mentions; S/A) was then calculated for deaths in the period 1993 to 2016. This new measure of fatal toxicity, expressed by S/A, was well-correlated with the index L n (T f) of the original reference compounds. The calculation of S/A was then extended to a group of new psychoactive substances where insufficient prevalence or seizure data were available to directly determine a value of T f by interpolation of a graph of T f versus S/A. Benzodiazepine analogues had particularly low values of S/A and hence T f. By contrast, γ-hydroxybutyrate/γ-butyrolactone, α-methyltryptamine, synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists and benzofurans had a higher fatal toxicity.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio