The Influence of EU Law on the Rules of Hungarian Civil Procedure

In this paper I will give a short insight into a field which will definitely not change the model of the Hungarian civil procedure law, but which – similarly to other fields of law – made a significant effect to the change of the civil procedure rules following the change of regime in Hungary and therefore requires a completely different approach from the legislators as well as the jurisdiction; this field is the community law of the European Union.     

Biomechanical overload in multiple tasks with weekly and annual cycle: practical experiences in the field of cleaning and packaging of fruit

The OCRA method is the reference method chosen in ISO (ISO 11228-3) and CEN (EN 1005-5) standards regarding risk assessment and management of upper limbs repetitive movements and exertions. The method consists of two specific tools (OCRA index and OCRA checklist). In this paper special attention will be devoted to the procedures for the analysis of multiple repetitive tasks.When computing the OCRA index (checklist score) considering the presence of more than one repetitive task, a "traditional" procedure has been previously proposed. This approach, whose results could be defined as "time weighted average", seems to be appropriate when considering rotations among tasks that are performed almost once every hour. On the contrary, when rotation among repetitive tasks is less frequent the "time weighted average" approach could result into an underestimation of the exposure level. For those scenarios an alternative approach is based on a concept that the most stressful task is the minimum starting point. A peculiar procedure allows to exactly estimate the resulting index within this range of minimum to maximum values. It is possible to apply this approach also for job rotation with weekly or monthly or annual cycle typical of agriculture, supermarket, cleaning sectors. This paper shows criteria and results in two working situation: cleaning (weekly cycle) and packaging of fruit (annual cycle).     

Eliciting reconceptualization innovative moments to foster change in Career Construction Counseling

This study tests an add-on procedure to foster change in Career Construction Counseling by eliciting reconceptualization innovative moments. After the career counseling intervention with 42 participants, 21 participants were allocated to the add-on procedure, consisting of two additional sessions focused on eliciting reconceptualization innovative moments In turn, participants in the comparison group attended two extra intervention sessions in which the lifetime task was used. Outcome measures assessing vocational behavior and psychological distress were applied at the onset, at the end of counseling and after the two additional sessions. The findings show that Career Construction Counseling was effective, allowing a significant increase in vocational certainty, vocational identity, career decision-making, and a decrease in psychological distress. After counseling, participants in the add-on intervention fostering reconceptualization innovative moments revealed greater gains in vocational identity and psychological distress than those in the comparison group. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Omniscience at the Edge of Chaos: complexity,defences and change in a Children and Families Social Work department

ABSTRACT

This paper will explore a period of organisational change in a Children and Families Social Work team, applying ideas from complexity theory and psychoanalysis to explore the changes that occurred. In doing so it will critique the Newtonian concept of cause-and-effect linear causality, instead positing a nonlinear model of an organisation as a complex adaptive system in flux as it interacts with its environment. The paper will go on to posit that Bion’s psychoanalytic concepts of Omniscience and K Activity are self-organising forces in social care organisations, and when anxiety is not managed effectively, reductionist technical-rationale approaches to Children and Families Social Work dominate practice. It will conclude by outlining how the organisation’s effective management of anxiety through the creation of containment, created a series of organisational changes. These changes better supported the management of the complexity and uncertainty inherent in the social work task, raising possibilities of improvements in social work practice beyond the organisation.     

The task dilemma in human service organizations and its impact on efficacy A possible solution developed out of the theory of society of ürgen Habermas

In modern societies the professional social worker within human service organizations suffers from a phenomenon which can be called a task dilemma. According to this model, social service agencies are confronted daily with two ideal types of basic tasks: social integration and system integration. It is the paradox of these agencies that they are asked to fulfil both basic tasks, although the accomplishment of one works against the accomplishment of the other. The problem which will be discussed in this article is that both tasks must be accomplished, but each requires a different structure. Consequently, the task dilemma provokes a structure dilemma which necessarily diminishes work quality in this type of organization. The task dilemma will be explained according to specific elements of the theory of society derived from Habermas (1987a, 1987b). Using this approach, a new conceptual design will be derived which allows social work organizations to consciously and constantly determine their basic task priority. This concept is called the programme of structuration. It implies, as in a learning organization, a continuous evaluation of the specific organizational norm and basic task as well as the adaptation of the corresponding organizational structure. The implementation of this programme promises the guarantee of high efficacy in social service agencies in the long run.     

INDUCING OVERCONFIDENCE

In this study, I present a theory which explains how the influence of others may generate overconfidence. The argument is built on the idea that the more help an agent receives when performing a task, the less informative the score on that task will be relative to the agent's ability to perform it. If an agent is confident, he tends to benefit from more cooperation opportunities simply because he is likely to be perceived as being more skilled. As a result, he remains confident because the future signals he will observe will contain very little information regarding his ability. On the contrary, if the agent is not confident, he will receive more informative scores, which will help him learn his true ability faster. (JEL D81, D83, D84)     

Development of a lateral mobility task to identify individuals at risk for mobility disability and functional decline

Lateral mobility is integral to many activities of daily living involving transfer from one position to another. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the validity and test-retest reliability of a lateral-mobility (LATMOB) task for older adults. Measurements of lateral mobility, balance, and strength and self-reported and performance-based physical functioning were obtained in 63 women and 77 men > or = 50 years of age. The LATMOB task was significantly correlated with age, knee-extensor strength, grip strength, functional reach, and one-leg-stance time. Test-retest reliability of the task was excellent. The LATMOB task was highly correlated with the car task. Balance was significantly correlated with time to get into and out of a car and performance on the LATMOB task. The LATMOB task was significantly correlated with the Short Physical Performance Battery score. The LATMOB task is valid and reliable, but additional work is needed to assess its sensitivity to change and predictive validity.     

Cross‐Task Stability in Infant Attention: New Perspectives Using the Still‐Face Procedure

Infant visual attention has been studied extensively within cognitive paradigms using measures such as look duration and reaction time, but less work has examined how infant attention operates in social contexts. In addition, little is known about the stability of individual differences in attention across cognitive and social contexts. In this study, a cross‐sectional sample of 50 infants (4 and 6 months of age) were first tested in a look duration and reaction time task with static visual stimuli. Next, their mothers participated with the infants in the still‐face procedure, a mildly distressing social interaction paradigm that involves violation of expectancy. Individual differences in looking and emotion were stable across the phases of the still‐face task. Further, individual differences in looking measures from the visual attention task were related to the pattern of looking shown across the phases of the still‐face procedure. Results indicate that individual differences in attentional measures show moderate stability within cognitive and social contexts, and that the ability of infants to shift and disengage looks may affect their ability to regulate interaction in social contexts.     

Task‐to‐Task Vagal Regulation: Relations With Language and Play in 20‐Month‐Old Children

In this article we report patterns of task‐to‐task vagal tone change across multiple language and play tasks as well as associations between these patterns of task‐to‐task vagal tone change and language and play performance in 20‐month‐old girls and boys. Although initially different in vagal tone suppression during solitary play, girls and boys exhibited similar group patterns of vagal reengagement during successive language and play tasks with their mothers and with an experimenter. In terms of individual differences, vagal suppression during solitary play and vagal reengagement during social interactive tasks predicted language and play performance. Gender differences emerged in patterns of predictive relations: Task‐to‐task vagal changes predicted primarily play performance in girls and language performance in boys. These findings expose the effects of social context on directional changes in task‐to‐task vagal tone and speak to the functional role of appropriate vagal regulation in young children's language and play performance.     

Teaching Students the Task Force Approach: A Policy-Practice Course

Abstract

In contemporary society, task forces are commonly used to deal with community-based social problems. Task forces develop, change, and implement policies at all levels of government, and within all types of organizations, including the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Unfortunately, social work educators have not been involved in teaching the policy-practice skills of working on a task force. This article discusses existing literature on task forces. Gersick's (1988) model of task group development is used to structure the teaching of the task force approach. An advanced policy course on homelessness is used as an illustration, and a recommendation is made for adjusting educational requirements to cross-reference courses in the social work curriculum that teach substantive topics and, at the same time, use innovative methods to teach group skills.     

Analyzing Web pages visual scanpaths: between and within tasks variability

In this paper, we propose a new method for comparing scanpaths in a bottom-up approach, and a test of the scanpath theory. To do so, we conducted a laboratory experiment in which 113 participants were invited to accomplish a set of tasks on two different websites. For each site, they had to perform two tasks that had to be repeated ounce. The data were analyzed using a procedure similar to the one used by Duchowski et al. [8]. The first step was to automatically identify, then label, AOIs with the mean-shift clustering procedure [19]. Then, scanpaths were compared two by two with a modified version of the string-edit method, which take into account the order of AOIs visualizations [2]. Our results show that scanpaths variability between tasks but within participants seems to be lower than the variability within task for a given participant. In other words participants seem to be more coherent when they perform different tasks, than when they repeat the same tasks. In addition, participants view more of the same AOI when they perform a different task on the same Web page than when they repeated the same task. These results are quite different from what predicts the scanpath theory.     

Social work and resettlement

Summary

This paper describes counselling in a social work agency that provides hostel accommodation for single homeless women, and works to resettle them into permanent accommodation. Given that the Barclay Report described the practice of social work as made up of the two elements of counselling and social care planning, the paper explores the way counselling is influenced when carried on in an agency with a specific ‘social care’ function. This is contrasted with counselling in agencies that offer a counselling service alone. Examples will be given of people using an attachment to a hostel, and to a worker, as they cope with change and make psychological growth. The power of such workers can only be exercised if they are true to the agency function, and gear their interventions to the task of resettlement. If workers do this they may find that as well as resettling people into accommodation, they are resettling them into life.     

Wie könnten wir Organisationsentwicklungen partizipativ gestalten?

Within this contribution, we discuss how the Design Thinking (DT) approach can be used by consultants to systematically integrate participatory aspects into change processes. Instead of perceiving employees as passive and resistant to change, the DT process aims at involving the workforce into the planning and implementation of change projects. Furthermore, we highlight why it is important to understand organizations as complex systems that require an iterative goal-oriented procedure to implement change holistically. The DT phases (inspiration, ideation, and implementation) are described, illustrated on the basis of case studies, and complemented by findings from behavioral sciences. To increase the likelihood that the DT mindset will be integrated into an organization’s structure, we underscore which aspects should be considered while embedding this user-oriented approach into an organization’s culture. Finally, we highlight the parallels between the DT approach and action research, as developed by Kurt Lewin, and discuss how DT can help to make the work within an organization more meaningful.     

The passing of the shift in aircraft maintenance--a task that produces deaths

Maintenance tasks, especially in heavy maintenance, may not be completed in a single shift. Aircraft maintenance technicians often take work in progress by colleagues, and spend the incomplete work for a change of team. The need for accuracy and efficiency of information transfer in many cases, without having time to have a meeting to pass the service is a crucial aspect of maintenance work. The ideal shift change can occur normally before delivery and continues to proceed normally after delivery. Although a shift change create challenges for communication, they also offer opportunities to detect and correct errors, where the task of delivery is an opportunity to identify the problem and fix it. In this case, the task was done correctly the first round, however, a problem began when the second round took. One example is a case in which the first round have removed a defective part for replacement and let the component of aircraft at end of turn with problems. Instead of ordering and installation of an operational component, the second round was then reinstall the faulty component, not realizing he had information about the problem attached.     

Does subliminal exposure to sexual stimuli have the same effects on men and women?

Three studies explored gender differences in explicit and implicit components of sexual arousal following brief exposure to a sexual stimulus. Whereas Study 1 assessed reports of sexual arousal following subliminal exposure to a sexual or a neutral picture, Studies 2 and 3 examined the effects of the same priming procedure on accessibility of sex-related thoughts assessed with a pictorial judgment task and a lexical decision task. The subliminal sexual prime did not have an effect on men's reports of sexual arousal, but caused women to report lower levels of sexual arousal. In contrast, the same subliminal sexual prime led to higher accessibility of sex-related thoughts in both men and women. It is therefore suggested that the subliminal sexual prime causes women to activate sex-related mental contents but to experience the result as somewhat aversive.     

Technology,offshoring and the task content of occupations in the United Kingdom

The authors analyse change in employment levels and in the task content of occupations, both within occupations (i.e. at the intensive margin) and between occupations (i.e. at the extensive margin) in the United Kingdom over the period 1997–2006 using data from the national Skills Survey, which has comparable within‐occupation task data for three waves: 1997, 2001 and 2006. They find that within‐occupation task content changed significantly, and that the magnitude of change was similar to that found at the extensive margin. Their econometric results suggest that these intensive‐margin shifts can be explained by technological improvements but not by offshoring.     

Single Mothers with Custody Following Divorce

The experience of being a single mother with custody following divorce is influenced by many variables across several levels of interaction, such as age of mother and child, potential for remarriage, coping skills, social networks and income changes. Cross-sectional studies have examined additional variables such as time since divorce and level of family religiosity and subsequent impact on individual well-being. Whereas most studies took a cate- gorical approach to examining the experience of divorce, a few refreshing studies were based on an ecological systems model. As divorce also involves building a new life, longitudinal research pro- vides the best picture of how divorced women accomplish this task. Long-term research clearly points to the fact that divorce is an event whose impact is individual and very often life long. Researchers have provided valuable information to build meaningful programs of intervention for divorced mothers. Perhaps the biggest challenge is to design flexible programs which can grow and change with the needs of the divorced mother. Future research will be most beneficial when it addresses the divorced mother family as a healthy family unit.     

Teaching Students by Having Them Emulate an Expert System

Summary

An expert system, designed to demonstrate a procedure that students found difficult to master, became the stimulus and the prototype for developing a better way to teach this material. The new method was to have students simulate the computer by rigidly following a set of explicit instructions. This enabled the students to learn what formerly eluded them: the logical deduction of new hypotheses from a set of linkable propositions. Success in carrying out this mechanical task became the basis for their understanding the logic behind the procedure.     

Pesticide exposure and sprayer's task goals: comparison between vineyards and greenhouses

Plant protection products are used in agriculture to improve yields, but this use can cause contamination of the environment and is also likely to have adverse short and long term effects on agricultural workers. The field study took place in greenhouses and vineyards where operators are involved in high levels of pesticide spraying. The objective of this intervention was to identify factors explaining the influence of task factors on the exposure of greenhouse growers and vineyard workers. Thirteen operators were selected for detailed observations during one session of spraying. Video recordings provide counts of physical contacts between the operator and all the surrounding surfaces during the spraying operation. Both in vineyards and in greenhouses, physical and temporal constraints are the predominant factors in establishing a specific spraying procedure. Every action taken by the operator is a result of a compromise between safety, task performance and quality.