Stakeholders’ Perspective on Ecological Modeling in Environmental Risk Assessment of Pesticides: Challenges and Opportunities

The article closely examines the role of mechanistic effect models (e.g., population models) in the European environmental risk assessment (ERA) of pesticides. We studied perspectives of three stakeholder groups on population modeling in ERA of pesticides. Forty‐three in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders from regulatory authorities, industry, and academia all over Europe. The key informant approach was employed in recruiting our participants. They were first identified as key stakeholders in the field and then sampled by means of a purposive sampling, where each stakeholder identified as important by others was interviewed and asked to suggest another potential participant for our study. Our results show that participants, although having different institutional backgrounds often presented similar perspectives and concerns about modeling. Analysis of repeating ideas and keywords revealed that all stakeholders had very high and often contradicting expectations from models. Still, all three groups expected effect models to become integrated in future ERA of pesticides. Main hopes associated with effect models were to reduce the amount of expensive and complex testing and field monitoring, both at the product development stage, and as an aid to develop mitigation measures. Our analysis suggests that, although the needs of stakeholders often overlapped, subtle differences and lack of trust hinder the process of introducing mechanistic effect models into ERA.     

Becoming aware of the grand social challenges: how an international and interdisciplinary educational context may broaden students’ perspectives on human rights and public health

ABSTRACT

The understanding of contemporary social problems and challenges in an international and national perspective is a significant issue for social work because of globalisation and social problems are too complex to handle by single actors themselves. The need for interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration is important. This paper focuses on experiences from an Erasmus Intensive Programme with the title Human Rights, Public Health and Social Service Challenges on Local Government in the Nordic-Baltic Sea Area. Social work students from different countries interacted with students from other disciplines such as political science, psychology and economy to discuss common challenges and solutions in this field. The analysis of the findings shows students reflect upon human rights issues as universal rights and how challenges presented by contextual differences in preconditions for everyday life between the countries, are reflected from different disciplines/professional perspectives. The paper argues that international and interdisciplinary programmes, where students get the opportunity to meet and to work with overarching and transnational issues, have a great potential for engaging students in global development in a rapidly changing world.     

Detoxing feels good: dieting and affect in 22Days Nutrition and goop detoxes

In this paper, I examine the online platforms that present and facilitate two highly profiled diets: the vegan meal service 22Days Nutrition and goop.com’s detoxes. 22Days Nutrition and the goop detoxes are noteworthy case studies because they showcase a shift in the way dieting is approached in the contemporary moment. Rather than being concerned exclusively with weight loss, these diets stress the emotional value and reward that their highly restrictive approach to eating offers. The diets rarely equate restrictive eating with attaining thinness or weight loss, but rather with an abstract sense of “feeling good” and overall emotional wellbeing. However, this articulation of dieting as an opportunity to enable a “positive” affective experience has larger social and political implications. The article unpacks these implications, finding that the diets’ promises of wellbeing depend on not only individual, continual self-transformation but also the formation of collectives from which some bodies must necessarily be excluded.     

Optimal decomposition of probabilistic networks by simulated annealing

This paper investigates the applicability of a Monte Carlo technique known as simulated annealing to achieve optimum or sub-optimum decompositions of probabilistic networks under bounded resources. High-quality decompositions are essential for performing efficient inference in probabilistic networks. Optimum decomposition of probabilistic networks is known to be NP-hard (Wen, 1990). The paper proves that cost-function changes can be computed locally, which is essential to the efficiency of the annealing algorithm. Pragmatic control schedules which reduce the running time of the annealing algorithm are presented and evaluated. Apart from the conventional temperature parameter, these schedules involve the radius of the search space as a new control parameter. The evaluation suggests that the inclusion of this new parameter is important for the success of the annealing algorithm for the present problem.     

Do your duty—demand your right: a theoretical discussion of the norm of reciprocity in social work

This article presents a literature-based critique of the principle of reciprocity in welfare and social work. The norm of reciprocity is in principle an ethical, universal norm related to the whole scope of human interaction. In this article the scope has been delimited to social work and the implementation of a policy of workfare in Norway. Emphasis is given to exploring mechanisms that may explain important characteristics of implementation practices that are not always clearly visible. The discussion includes the dialectics between overarching institutional relationships such as the body of laws and existing policies, institutional practices and the practice of social workers. The norm of reciprocity is analysed as a generative mechanism that sometimes implies problematic aspects requiring critical examination and discussion. By viewing reciprocity as a generative mechanism and as a ‘starting mechanism’, problematic aspects of implementation practices may be better understood.     

Welfare states, family inequality, and equality of opportunity

Why have countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark been somewhat more successful than others in terms of creating conditions that foster equality of opportunity? I argue that there are two characteristics of the social-democratic welfare state that have played a role, namely lower social and economic inequality and family policies aimed at equalizing conditions for children during their formative years. It is clear, however, that inequality of opportunity remains an important part of the social landscape in these societies. This is because it is difficult if not impossible to equalize the cultural and social capital of families through public policy.     

Indexes of Racial Residential Segregation for 109 Cities in the United States, 1940 to 1970

Abstract

An index of racial residential segregation for a city may be calculated from census data reporting the number of white and nonwhite households resident in each city block. Such an index summarizes the dissimilarity in residential location of the two groups. Segregation indexes for 109 cities for the years 1940, 1950, and 1960 were published in Taeuber and Taeuber Negroes in Cities (1965).

Segregation indexes for 109 cities for 1970, together with the previously published indexes for the three earlier census dates, are presented in Table 1. The trend data from 1940 through 1970 refer to residential segregation of whites and nonwhites. For 1970 only, segregation indexes are also presented comparing whites and Negroes.

The trend data reveal a distinctive pattern of change during each of the three decades. From 1960 to 1970, declines in segregation prevailed among cities in each region of the country.

The indexes for 1970 were calculated from Public Use Summary Tapes issued by the Bureau of the Census. Certain difficulties were encountered in the use of these tapes. A methodological appendix describes the data source and retrieval procedure for calculation of city segregation indexes for 1970.     

The Mediation Window: Regulation of Argumentation and Affect in Custody Mediation

High-conflict custody mediation requires working with both the emotional and the factual aspects of the conflict, while balancing unequal power relations between parents. Applying conversation analysis methods to a case of “treatment as usual” high-conflict mediation, this study offers an analysis of the process of establishing a balance point—the mediation window—where both emotional and practical concerns can be discussed efficiently. Communication patterns in the selected case are compared to an extract of the remaining corpus from which it is drawn, consisting of 38 high-conflict mediation cases. Findings are discussed with respect to the practice and ideology of custody mediation, particularly concerning empowerment, self-determination, and mediator control.