Voluntary

Control of the body requires inhibiting complex actions, involving contracting and relaxing muscles. However, little is known of how voluntary commands to relax a muscle are cancelled. Action inhibition causes both suppression of muscle activity and the transient excitation of antagonist muscles, the latter being termed active breaking. We hypothesized that active breaking is present when stopping muscle relaxations. Stop signal experiments were used to compare the mechanisms of active breaking for muscle relaxations and contractions in male and female human participants. In experiments 1 and 2, go signals were presented that required participants to contract or relax their biceps or triceps muscle. Infrequent Stop signals occurred after fixed delays (0-500 ms), requiring that participants cancelled go commands. In experiment 3, participants increased (con-tract) or decreased (relax) an existing isometric finger abduction depending on the go signal, and cancelled these force changes whenever Stop signals occurred (dynamically adjusted delay). We found that muscle relaxations were stopped rapidly, met predictions of existing race models, and had Stop signal reaction times that correlated with those observed during the stopping of muscle contractions, suggesting shared control mechanisms. However, stopped relaxations were preceded by transient increases in electromyography (EMG), while stopped contractions were preceded by decreases in EMG, suggesting a later divergence of control. Muscle state-specific active breaking occurred simultaneously across muscles, consistent with a central origin. Our results indicate that the later stages of action inhibition involve separate excitatory and inhibitory pathways, which act automatically to cancel complex body movements. The mechanisms of how muscle relaxations are cancelled are poorly understood. We showed in three experiments involving multiple effectors that stopping muscle relaxations involves transient bursts of EMG activity, which resemble cocontraction and have onsets that correlate with Stop signal reaction time. Comparison with the stopping of matched muscle contractions showed that active breaking was muscle state specific, being positive for relaxations and negative for contractions. The two processes were also observed to co-occur in agonist-antagonist pairs, suggesting separate pathways. The rapid, automatic activation of both pathways may explain how complex actions can be stopped at any stage of their execution.

Lực lượng quân đội chuyên nghiệp của Mỹ-Ảnh: Shutterstock Mỹ là quốc gia có nền quân sự mạnh bậc nhất thế giới với lực lượng quân đội chuyên nghiệp, trang bị vũ khí hiện đại và hoạt động hậu cần hàng đầu. Từ năm 1973, Mỹ đã bãi bỏ nghĩa vụ quân sự bắt buộc và thay bằng lực lượng quân đội hoàn toàn tự nguyện (allvolunteer force). Hiện nay, Mỹ được duy trì lực lượng quân đội ở mức 1,4 triệu người, theo thống kê của Bộ Quốc phòng Mỹ năm 2011.

All actions, even the simplest like moving an arm to grasp a pen, are associated with energy costs. Thus all mobile organisms possess the ability to evaluate resources and select those behaviours that are most likely to lead to the greatest accrual of valuable items (rewards) in the near or, especially in the case of humans, distant future. The evaluation process is performed at all possible stages of the series of decisions that lead to the building of a goal-directed action or to its suppression. This is because all animals have a limited amount of energy and resources; to survive and be able to reproduce they have to minimize the costs and maximize the outcomes of their actions. These computations are at the root of behavioral flexibility.
Two executive functions play a major role in generating flexible behaviors: i) the ability to predict future outcomes of goal-directed actions; and ii) the ability to cancel them when they are unlikely to accomplish valuable results. These two processes operate continuously during the entire course of a movement: during its genesis, its planning and even its execution, so that the motor output can be modulated or suppressed at any time before its execution. In this review, functional interactions of the extended neural network subserving generation and inhibition of goal-directed movements will be outlined, leading to the intriguing hypothesis that the performance of actions and their suppression are not specified by independent sets of brain regions. Rather, it will be proposed that acting and stopping are functions emerging from specific interactions between largely overlapping brain regions, whose activity is intimately linked (directly or indirectly) to the evaluations of pros and cons of an action. Such mechanism would allow the brain to perform as a highly efficient and flexible system, as different functions could be computed exploiting the same components operating in different configurations.

This paper critically evaluates the recent shift away from a “thin” reading of monetary exchange, which views money transactions as universally market-like and profit-motivated, towards “thicker” readings of exchange, which identify the permeation of wider economic relations and not-for-profit logics. To do this, an empirical study is reported of what happens when money penetrates informal exchanges between family, friends and neighbours. The research findings lead to a more nuanced reading of monetary exchange being brought to light. The main finding is that the imagery and perception of paid informal transactions may be constructed and interpreted in “thin” terms by participants, even if the core motives and personal relations involved in paid mutual aid remain “thick.” Significantly, while such a finding does not constitute a change in behaviour towards “thin” marker readings of economic exchange, it may explain why some people are dissuaded

Հոդվածում ամփոփված են Արցախյան պատերազմում կամավորական շարժման սոցիոլոգիական իմաստավորումներն ու պատերազմի սոցիալական դեմքը կամավորների շրջանում բացահայտելու նպատակով իրականացված սոցիոլոգիական հետազոտության արդյունքները։ Վերջիններս մի կողմից բացահայտում են կամավորագրվելու շարժառիթները, պարզում, թե ինչպես են կամավորականները գնահատում ստեղծված իրավիճակը և ինչ բնութագրիչներով են օժտված նրանք։ Մյուս կողմից՝ խնդիրը դիտարկվում է հասարակություն-բանակ փոխհարաբերությունների շրջանակներում՝ ընդգծելով կամավորական շարժման ինստիտուցիոնալացման նախապայմաններն ու հեռանկարները։

The article covers the results of the sociological research conducted with a view to studying the sociological interpretations of Nagorno-Karabakh voluntary movement and the social image of the war among the volunteer soldiers. On the one hand the results uncover the personal motives for volunteering, as well as find out how the volunteers understand and assess the situation, and what personal features are typical of them. On the other hand the issue is being observed within the framework of society – army interrelations, thus highlighting the preconditions and prospects for institutionalization of the voluntary movement.

In a market economy with structural problems, the social sector becomes alternative of reply the dynamics of the capital's accumulation. Established in the agreement of that the spontaneous decision for the exercise of the voluntary work involves diverse reasons, the present paper objective to the development a typology for this activity. The voluntary work congregates categories of altruistic reasons, of proper interest and of sociability, mediated for religious ideas, affective or distressing, resultant of the guilt feelings or obligation to the other, or, still, of responsibility feelings. Not so far these politician-ideological components, the voluntary work gaining spaces in social environment and, therefore, belong to the studious of the Social Management, the task to understand and systemize contents. These contents would be associates, therefore, the values as self-denial; devotion; friendship, learning and ambition.

Along with the economic development, the compulsory information disclosure of listed companies can not satisfy investors' diversified information needs. The society advances higher requirements for listed companies' information disclosure, which drives listed companies to disclose more information voluntarily. Recently, voluntary disclosure has gradually become a focus domestic and abroad because voluntary disclosure has positive impacts on the communication of corporate management agency and interests-related parties, the decrease of information asymmetry of investors, and the improvement of quality of disclosed information. On one hand, voluntary disclosure can detail and deepen compulsory disclosure, improving the credibility and completeness of compulsory disclosure. On the other hand, it can complement and expand the compulsory disclosure, for the sake of realizing the more complete, diversified, and systematic information disclosure. Therefore, the voluntary disclosure serves as an effective way for communicating interest-related parties and describing the corporate prospect. It is meaningful for perfecting listed companies' governance structure and enhancing the protection for investors' interests.

Few environmental problems exemplify market-failure better than municipal solid waste does: A direct by-product of economic production and consumption, its collection and disposal (still mainly at landfills, in many countries) incurs high capital and running costs, creates environmental and health impacts and, in European Union countries, risks incurring heavy financial penalties. The main remedy proposed in environmental economics is a marginal tax on the disposal of mixed household waste, intended to incentivise its reduction and separation for recycling. But taxes are politically unpopular, expensive to administer and generate variable response − sometimes stimulating illegal disposal of waste instead of its reduction. Taxes also risk undermining the moral benefits people seem to enjoy from cooperating voluntarily. Inducing voluntary cooperation could cultivate moral motives and generate cooperation, but this has received less attention in environmental economics to date. The aim of this thesis is to examine the determinants of cooperation by households in waste management activities, investigating the role that government policy can play in stimulating it, and focusing on the role of price incentives and of scheme promotion. Chapter 1 introduces the issue of waste management as an economic problem, and the role of household cooperation as a promising solution. Chapter 2 surveys the literature on the topic of what determines household cooperation in waste management and identifies the key gaps which the thesis seeks to address. Three manuscripts are presented in Chapters 3, 4 and 5, each of which examines a distinct question on the determinants of household cooperation in waste management. Chapter 6 concludes with a synthesis of main findings, key policy cues and suggestions for future research. The first manuscript titled “Voluntary recycling despite financial disincentives” employs a unique merged panel data set (n = 4,644) using data from 58 localities over 86 weeks to assess the determinants of participation in a voluntary waste separation scheme in Malta. The two manuscripts that follow are based on a nationally-representative telephone survey (n = 1,037), containing two embedded experiments, and conducted during 2013, in Malta, for this thesis. Manuscript 2 titled “Partisanship, priming and participation in voluntary recycling” tests whether party identification, as distinct from environmental or political ideology, can act as a determinant of participation in a recycling scheme, particularly if the scheme is promoted in a manner that associates it with the party in government. Manuscript 3 titled “The impact of a Pay as You Throw tax level and label on home-composting” examines the potential of a Pay As You Throw (PAYT) tax, and of its labelling, to induce substitution of biodegradable waste away from mixed kerb-side disposal and into home-composting. It also examines the prospect that this type of intervention stimulates illegal disposal. Synthesising the results of three studies, the thesis finds that: 1. The type of households most likely to cooperate in waste management schemes are multiple-person ones facing lower constraints of space and time, where members hold pro-environmental preferences. This confirms findings of similar studies in other contexts, helps forecast uptake and may guide the design and promotion of schemes to target low-lying fruit and tackle relevant constraints. 2. Driven mainly by moral motives, households are willing to recycle voluntarily even if it is less convenientc e than disposing of un-separated waste, and they are willing to pay for it. This is a useful finding for municipalities with low budgets, unable to institute taxes or fearing illegal disposal as a reaction. 3. Political preferences are relevant to recycling: Where negative sentiment towards the party in government exists, (even subtle cues) promoting the scheme as a government scheme and associating it with the party in government can suppress participation. Decoupling political communication from scheme promotion can release more households into cooperative effort. 4. Responses to waste taxes are not just a matter of price level but also of tax salience: A tax label can significantly increase waste separation and home-composting but it also boosts higher illegal-disposal intent. The way a fee is labelled therefore itself forms part of the intervention tool-kit, meriting pre-testing and capable of manipulation. These findings make a marginal contribution to gaps in the environmental economics literature by integrating insights from psychology. They are also intended to offer simple and applicable ideas to policy-makers and to scheme-operators aiming to increase household cooperation in waste management

An overview of civil society organisations and the concepts of 'civil society' and 'social capital' in Australian and New Zealand research, politics and wider usage.  Similarities and differences between the two countries are noted, and basic descriptive data are also provided on the size and scope of civil society organisations in the two countries, along with some indicators of citizen engagement.

Page 1. TRUST, THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR AND CIVIL SOCIETY by Natalie Fenton, Andrew Passey and Les Hems. Natalie Fenton Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire, England LEll 3TU. Tel: +44 (0)1509 223348. ...

I argue that the two criteria traditionally identified as jointly sufficient for voluntary behavior according to Aristotle require qualification. Without such qualification, they admit troubling exceptions (i.e., they are not sufficient). Through minding these difficult examples, I conclude that a third condition mentioned by Aristotle – the eph' hēmin – is key to qualifying the original two criteria. What is eph' hēmin is that which is efficiently caused by appetite and teleologically caused by reason such that the agent could have, in theory, acted differently. I propose that praise and blame are justified only when 1: the behavior is voluntary and 2: the agent is susceptible (at least in principle) to the positive influences of appropriate praise and blame to help form, improve, or strengthen a good character. Through concentrating on the agent's affectability in morally salient situations, we may better understand the qualified criteria's role in voluntary human behavior in general.

A eight and half year retrospective study from January, 2005 to June, 2013 was conducted in the blood bank of Shri Mahant Indiresh Hospital under the department of pathology of Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. Donors were screened for seroprevalence of HIV, HBV, HCV and Syphilis. The sera of total 12716 donors were tested, out of these 6592(51.8%) were from voluntary while 6124(48.2%) were towards replacement donors. The incidence of HIV was 0.17 % in total donors, more in replacement (0.12%) as compared to voluntary (0.05%). The seroprevalence of HBsAg in total donors was 0.72 %. Comparable results were seen in both types of donors. The seropositivity for anti HCV was (0.55%) and was found to be higher in replacement donors (0.43%) .The seroprevalence of VDRL was 0.50 % in total donors, more in replacement donors (0.35%) as compared to voluntary donors (0.15%). Hence, it was concluded that voluntary donation is safer than replacement donation.

In this contribution the influence of reasonableness on the element of conduct in the South African law of delict will be analysed and compared with the requirement of some form of conduct in English tort law, American tort law and the French law of delict. Fundamental similarities and differences among the different legal systems must be considered. France and South Africa follow a generalising approach to determining a delict while English and American law have a system of separate torts. Even though English and American law do not explicitly refer to the requirement of conduct in tort law, it is generally implicitly required. This is the case whether one is dealing with the tort of negligence or the intentional torts. In French law too, a fait générateur (a generating, triggering, wrongful act or event) generally must also be present in order to ground delictual liability. The concept of fait générateur is broader than the concept of conduct found in the other jurisdictions in th...

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The problem in this study is, Why conduct and management decision making voluntary disclosure, voluntary disclosure How is decision-making, affecting the securities company?, And how to determine the level of voluntary disclosure (the level of voluntary disclosure) in the annual report?., The purpose of this study was to determine how the decision-making voluntary disclosure decision-making of companies that have gone public, knowing what influences the decision making of managers in the voluntary disclosure enter price and knowing determining the level of voluntary disclosure (the level of voluntary disclosure) in the annual report.

The recession of 2008/09 threatened a crisis for the third sector and its beneficiaries. Amidst mounting concern for the sector’s future, national and horizontal infrastructure and government worked together to minimise potential impacts. This research report, based on media scoping, literature review and key informant interviews, seeks to explore the evolving third sector policy environment and the discourses and relationships that animated it during this period. It outlines the shift from the initial rhetoric of crisis to a ‘mixed picture’ discourse which accommodated a lack of evidence for substantial impacts while providing the basis for continued infrastructure/government support. Exploring the diversity of sector interests highlighted by responses to the OTS’ third sector action plan, Real Help for Communities,suggests the continued importance of vertical and local channels of communication with and support from government for groups within the sector. Finally it traces how sector leaders talked about the recession having lagged effects or being a phoney war. They looked with trepidation to the ‘real crisis’ predicted to hit the sector in 2010/11: a period of financial uncertainty brought about by the convergence of the spending review, the end of several large public sector contracts and the impending general election.

The relationship between the state and the voluntary sector has changed significantly since 1948 when Beveridge’s major report, Voluntary Action, was first published. Sixty years later, a group of historians analyse and reassess the impact of Beveridge’s ideas about voluntary action for social advance in this timely volume. Using examples from the UK, Australasia and Canada, this book clearly articulates the importance and significance of Beveridge's ideas on voluntary action within an international context.


With the emphasis of governments on the importance of the voluntary or 'third sector' and the development of policies and practices to enhance social capital, build civil society and engage communities, this book will be invaluable for those interested in how the third sector has evolved over time. It will be of interest to historians, social policy researchers, political theorists, economists and educationalists.