A dissociation between simple and complex span impairment in alcoholics

We investigated whether the surprisingly good memory performance of alcoholics may result from simple memory performance being spared while performance in complex memory tasks is impaired. Simple word span was contrasted with a complex word span task involving concurrent monitoring and re-organisation of items for recall. To control for disruption of rehearsal in the complex word span task, performance on two additional tasks with disrupted rehearsal but no additional processing components was studied. As hypothesised, the alcoholics showed a deficit in the complex but not the simple word span task. They were also impaired, compared to controls, on both tasks with disrupted rehearsal. The difference between groups remained in the complex span task when scores in simple span and either of the two other tasks were used as covariates. Thus, both executive processes necessary for coping with disrupted rehearsal and additional processes scheduling processing and storage in a complex task may play a role in accounting for working memory deficits found in alcoholics.     

Assessment of Social Services’ Disaster Risk Management: Case Finland

Local actors are crucial in disaster risk management; thus, their capacities should be assessed periodically. In this study, local social services’ preparedness plans were assessed using Emergency Management Program Measurement and quantitative document analysis. The specific aim was to study how social service areas of various sizes were prepared for disasters in Finland. The results showed that disaster risk management capacity varied significantly between large and small service areas. Larger areas were better prepared for supporting management, and had better procedures to activate their response, modern public information and deeper cooperation with the private sector and the civil society. The differences might derive from the fact that large areas have more resources allocated to disaster risk management.     

Future Directions for Mobile Communications Business,Technology and Research

This paper presents a picture of the mobile communications market and expected further development of systems and technologies. This is done with evaluating the market needs and reflecting these to available technology as well as technological opportunities. Despite of apparently advanced state of the technology and business, both market and technical solutions are concluded to likely experience further radical changes. The need for wireless capacity is two orders of magnitude more than what combined 2G and 3G would provide. A meaningful research objective to achieve is not in any single topic but will emerge from combining the needs of market and society with the opportunities offered by plurality of technologies. This opportunity starts form explorations aiming to a deeper understanding of the spatial propagation effects and ways to deploy them.