Desktop Expert Systems

Summary

The introduction of commercial exDert systems shells for common desktop computers offers human service agencies a new area of computer application to add to the word processor and the spreadsheet. Expert systems can be used to develop knowledge based applications which automate policy manuals, provide tutorial support in training situations, provide support in decision making situations, etc. Further, the low cost, extensive documentation, and short learning time allow agencies to develop applications unique to their needs or allow individual employees to develop applications that help them with some aspects of their work.     

Expert Systems

Summary

Expert systems are computer programs which embody the expertise of a human expert in order to consult and advise on a specific problem. It is now becoming feasible to apply expert systems technology to problems in the human services. This article describes what expert systems technology is and how it may be applied in human service practice. Finally, some of the promises and pitfalls of this new technology are addressed.     

Expert System Development in III-Structured Domains

Summary

The paper is an examination of the problems and promise of knowledge creation and representation in the Human Services. It is the general proposition of the paper that expertise found in welfare agencies can be exploited to develop expert system software.

The contention of the paper is (hat the knowledge base of a system is never complete, that disciplines vary in terms of what constitutes acceptable levels of proof and measurement of certainty; that limitations intrinsic to an expert system are not limitations of design, but are limitations demonstrating conceptual and theoretical limits in the simulation of dynamic expertise; and finally that an acceptance of the limitations of knowledge acquisition and representation may paradoxically lead to the design of usable expert systems.     

Macro Practice and Policy in Cyberspace

SUMMARY

The integration of computer training within social work education is necessary for social workers to keep abreast of technological changes occurring within human service agencies. This article presents several techniques to integrate computer simulations and Internet research within the baccalaureate curriculum. Emphasis is placed on the use of these techniques to teach policy and macro practice.     

Diversity Within Diversity

Summary

Asian American elderly form a heterogeneous group with respect to immigration history, ethnic/cultural background, socioeconomic position, and health and mental health status. This paper provides an overview of the internal heterogeneity within the Asian American elderly population and identifies those who experience multiple stressors affecting their quality of life. Then it discusses barriers to formal service utilization as well as strengths and deficits of informal support systems. To better serve Asian American elders with their multiple needs for health, mental health, and social services, increased funding is recommended for research on this group, diversification of social service programs in coethnic communities, and increased cultural competence in non-Asian social service agencies.     

Challenging implicit bias: preparing students to practice with African American families

ABSTRACT

The disparity of African American families in the foster care system is a concern in the field of child welfare services and the social work profession. African American families experience unique challenges related to discriminatory practices and implicit biases in the child welfare system and by mandated reporters. To address these inequalities, state and local agencies have implemented prevention and intervention services to support minority families. Additionally, child welfare agencies have invested in professional development training for their workers to alleviate possible intolerant practices. This article describes implicit biases and considers how they could contribute to the disparity of African American families involved in the child welfare system. Furthermore, the article presents approaches to help social work students to identify and challenge their implicit biases to support culturally sensitive practices while working with African American families. It concludes with implications for social work education.     

Globalization,Plague and the Local Community: Healthcare Capacity,Politics, and the Microbe War

Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is the first major international epidemic of the twenty-first century. In a few short months it spread to every continent, infected 8,096 people, and claimed the lives of 774. It hit older persons particularly hard; it killed 50 percent of the infected of that age category.

The rate of plague's spread from one country to another has greatly increased as the globalization of the world's economy has produced rapid daily transportation of people, products, plants, animals, and, of course, microbes. Each day cities are at risk for the invasion of deadly infectious diseases. While international expert agencies such as the World Health Organization stand by to help fight outbreaks, ultimately, plagues are fought in the local community.

I discuss two theses: (1) To successfully contain and fight a major epidemic the capacity of the community's health care system must be enhanced by its functional linkages to external expert and bridging organizations and systems of organizations; and (2) that the extent to which a community's health care system can draw on external expert and bridging organizations and systems is a function of the degree to which the political state in which the community is embedded facilitates for fails to facilitate) those linkages.

My focus is on Hong Kong and the cities of the People's Republic of China; they were at the epicenter of the SARS outbreak, and it was from them that the contagion spread to other countries. Findings show that plagues are not only matters of biology and health, but also matters of politics, power, and international relations.     

Diversity-The Competitive Advantage

ABSTRACT

There is increasing pressure on social service agencies to produce “results,” and often agency computer information systems are associated with efforts to do so. The current study explores worker characteristics that may interact with organizational factors in influencing data system utilization. A survey of 245 community social workers serving as field instructors was conducted. Worker skill and experience with computers accounted for a large part of the variance on the utilization of information systems followed by the user-friendliness of the system and the workers' beliefs that data are useful in their work. The findings suggest that organizations seeking to increase worker utilization of information systems will need to focus on enhancing worker's computer skills as well as assuring that the information is easy to use and is perceived as useful by workers.     

‘Footnotes to Miller and Moore’: Monomyth and Transnationality in the 1986 Superhero Comics

Abstract

New developments in comics studies have begun to consider the superhero comic as a transnational, rather than American, phenomenon. This approach offers a new way of thinking about the typical story that Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen jointly upended the comics world in 1986. While there is robust criticism to challenge the idea that 1986 was a miraculous year for comics, the continuing attention drawn by the two works requires us to think further about their apparent similarity. This article proposes the importance of a narrative of American exceptionalism within comics culture as a defining feature of the contemporary context for the production of the works. It then examines their responses to this context, arguing that they undermine the American monomyth of the superhero in different ways that originate in the different national positions of the two writers.     

Response to Student Participation and Student Involvement

Abstract

Government contracting out of responsibilities for the delivery of social services is an increasingly common phenomenon in these times of economic restraint. This paper argues that this practice, with its inherent technical and philosophical problems, negatively affects social service systems and social work practitioners. The resultant changes are described as having serious implications for social work educators, The argument is made that if educators are to remain relevant to the needs of service consumers, social work students, and welfare agencies, they must carefully reconsider aspects of curriculum planning and student placements as well as faculty involvement in research and advocacy.     

Abolition democracy and global justice

Abstract

As new social relations produce new kinds of social subjects, scholars in American Studies and Area Studies experience anxieties about disciplinary as well as geographic borders. The Civil Rights tradition of the 14th Amendment plays an important role within progressive American Studies scholarship, but in the course of seeking equality and exclusion within the USA, this tradition runs the risk of occluding the role of the nation in the world and its central role in creating and preserving inequality and injustice in other nations. An emerging emphasis on struggles for social justice without seeking state power encapsulates many of the most progressive impulses within Area Studies and transnational studies, yet this perspective runs the risk of occluding the enduring importance of the nation-state in inflecting global developments with local histories and concerns. The present moment challenges us to draw on both traditions, and to use each to critique the shortcomings of the other, while at the same time promoting an inclusionary, nonsectarian, and mutually supportive dialogue about our differences.     

Unemployment in the Czech Republic and Development of an Expert System for Assessing Unemployment Compensation

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses contemporary problems of unemployment in the Czech Republic (finding optimal alternatives of organizational structures of services of employment agencies). Based on characteristics and knowledge of information flows of the decision making process of claimants of unemployment compensation, a prototype expert system was developed to support this decision making. Results-of this research were evaluated from two points of view-the theoretical and practical benefits.     

Developing Expert Systems

Summary

This article provides an overview of the general procedure and steps involved in developing expert systems. The first consideration is to select a suitable problem. Actual development of the expert system begins with formulating and representing the knowledge base. Then a programming tool is selected for use in developing the expert system and a working prototype is developed. After a period of evaluation and reformulation the full expert system is completed. Finally, the performance of the expert system is formally evaluated, final modifications are made, and the expert system is put into everyday use. Additional resources are provided for further reference.     

Accessibility in Rural Social Service Agencies

ABSTRACT

This study explores the degree that social service agencies are aware of the ADA, the degree that agencies perceive they comply with the ADA, and the barriers these agencies face in making their services accessible. The directors of 28 randomly selected rural social service agencies in a midwestern state completed semi-structured telephone interviews. Interviews explored respondents& knowledge of the ADA, barriers rural agencies face in providing accessible services, types of accommodations they have made and degree of fit between the ADA and rural agencies. The findings suggest that while the ADA is not a significant burden for rural agencies, there is a need for enhanced training and outreach.     

Writing of home and home of writing Chinese American diaspora and literary imagination

Abstract

The Silent Traveller's Hong Kong Zhuzhi Poems (1972) by Chiang Yee provides an interesting case for study in relation to Asian American literary theory aesthetics for at least the following three reasons: First, Chiang's poems comment on the 'idiosyncratic phenomena' in Hong Kong, and the ambiguity and sometimes contradictions in his comments allow us to explore the issues of assimilation and Americanization and to get a good understanding of the meaning of 'home' to a Chinese diasporic poet. Second, utilization of the zhuzhi form, a tradition that has been largely abandoned in modern China, suggests the intrinsic value of the cultural tradition and emotional or psychological satisfaction to a Chinese diaspora. Chiang's tenacious adherence to the cultural tradition is a reflection of his yearning for an imaginary 'home'. Third, the use of the Chinese language underlines the poet's Chinese cultural sensitivity. A discussion of the form, content, and language of these poems illustrates the complexity of Asian American cultural and ethnic identity and the significance of the imaginary 'home' – a construction through writing where a diaspora may find a haven in displacement.     

The Perspective from the Field on Computer Literacy Training Needs

Summary

Rapidly evolving computer technology is changing agency life and social work practice and challenging schools of social work to incorporate such information technology into their curriculum in order to prepare students for these changes. This article describes one effort to meet this challenge: a planning and data-gathering approach utilized by the School of Social Work at the University of Washington to integrate classroom and practicum preparation with computer applications in the field. As part of this process, human service agencies that serve as practicum training sites and potential employers for master's level students within the Seattle metropolitan area were surveyed.

Based upon findings from this survey, this article presents an agency-based perspective on computer literacy training needs through addressing the questions of who is using what computer tools, toward what service ends, with what expected level of proficiency, and with what future needs and directions in mind. Implications of these field-based findings for curriculum planning, for prac-ticum development, and for the conceptualization of computer literacy within human services are identified.     

(IM)Materiality and Practice: Craft Making as a Medium for Reconstructing Ojibwe Identity in Domestic Spaces

ABSTRACT

Through interviews with thirteen Ojibwe, members of a Native American tribe in Minnesota, this article explores how home-based practices relate to the material and immaterial worlds and how they are impacted by a home's spatiality. Conceiving activities as processes that foster social, spatial, cultural, spiritual, and temporal connections, the analysis elaborates on how activities embedded in the craft making tradition are supported or suppressed by the domestic environment; how they relate, as well as how notions of home, culture, and identity are constructed. We conclude by highlighting culturally sensitive solutions and approaches that ease the tension between (im)materiality and the practical limitations of housing conditions.     

Reliability of an Automated Decision Support System for Behavioral Treatment Planning

Abstract

Automated decision support systems can provide inexperienced individuals with expert advice. But while a computer will always arrive at the same conclusion from a given set of data, human users bring individual variability to decision making. This study, therefore, examined the reliability of the decision support component of an expert system, the Mental Retardation-Expert (MR-E), which assists clinicians who treat problem behaviors of individuals with mental retardation or developmental disabilities. Four clinicians independently used MR-E to obtain consultations on 31 separate cases abstracted from the published literature. They reached a high level of agreement on functional hypotheses regardless of clinical experience, familiarity with MR-E, use of MR-E's basic or advanced modes, or consecutive number of consultations obtained.     

The Changing Face of Computer Utilization in Social Work Settings

Abstract

This paper describes survey results from 103 human service agencies serving as MSW training sites. The survey concerned: (a) Their current and projected computer utilization for direct and indirect practice activities; and (b) perceived issues, benefits, and emerging training needs regarding responsible and effective use of the computer. These findings' implications for curriculum planning, for practicum development, and for reconceptualizing computer literacy are explored.