Continuing Social Work Education: Results of a Delphi Survey

This study addresses the need for social work professionals to remain current with the changing bases of knowledge and skills that impact on their daily experience. Continuing social work education is assumed to be one of the most effective means of avoiding professional obsolescence. The purposes of the study were to achieve a level of consensus relative to theories, methodologies, and content areas of continuing social work education and then to project a functional model of continuing social work education useful for intermediate and long-range program planning.     

Adaptive density estimation: A curse of support?

This paper deals with the classical problem of density estimation on the real line. Most of the existing papers devoted to minimax properties assume that the support of the underlying density is bounded and known. But this assumption may be very difficult to handle in practice. In this work, we show that, exactly as a curse of dimensionality exists when the data lie in R^d, there exists a curse of support as well when the support of the density is infinite. As for the dimensionality problem where the rates of convergence deteriorate when the dimension grows, the minimax rates of convergence may deteriorate as well when the support becomes infinite. This problem is not purely theoretical since the simulations show that the support-dependent methods are really affected in practice by the size of the density support, or by the weight of the density tail. We propose a method based on a biorthogonal wavelet thresholding rule that is adaptive with respect to the nature of the support and the regularity of the signal, but that is also robust in practice to this curse of support. The threshold, that is proposed here, is very accurately calibrated so that the gap between optimal theoretical and practical tuning parameters is almost filled.     

Rethinking Marketing Programs for Emerging Markets

This article points to a fundamental inconsistency in the emerging market strategies of multinational firms. On the one hand, they seek billions of new consumers in the emerging markets of China, India, Indonesia, and Latin America—on the other, their marketing programs are scarcely adapted for these markets. The result is low market penetration, disappointing market shares and poor profitability. These multinationals are trapped by their own devices in gilded cages, serving the affluent few but ignoring the potential of the billions of new consumers that attracted them in the first place. In this article we propose that, in order to attract billions of new consumers, the marketing programs of multinationals need to be rethought from the ground up. We identify three key factors that characterize emerging markets: (1) low incomes, (2) variability in consumers and infrastructure, and (3) the relative cheapness of labor, which is often substituted for capital. We draw on numerous case studies from around the world to illustrate how to incorporate these realities into marketing programs. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of such an approach for the multinational’s core strategic assumptions.     

Vitamin B1 blocks damage caused by hyperglycemia

Diabetes accelerates the aging process and leads to complications that include blindness, renal failure, nerve damage, stroke, and cardiovascular disease. It has been hypothesized that high plasma glucose concentrations are responsible for increased mitochondrial free radical production and subsequent inactivation of glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) in vascular endothelial cells and other cells implicated in these complications. As a result of the decreased ability of GAPDH to process upstream metabolites, three pathways of metabolic damage are activated, which include the advanced glycation end-product formation pathway, the protein kinase C pathway, and the hexosamine pathway. All three pathways have been implicated in abnormal cell signaling in diabetes. A group of German and U.S. scientists has now found that treating diabetic rats with high doses of benfotiamine, a lipid-soluble form of vitamin B1, can prevent diabetic retinopathy and all three forms of metabolic damage by stimulating transketolase activity and thus diverting excess metabolites toward the pentose pathway. Although vitamin B1 is available over the counter, the researchers at this time do not advocate self-treatment without further clinical data.     

Knowledge Management Systems in Multinational Corporations: Typology and Transitional Dynamics

Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) are becoming part of the agenda in many of today's leading firms. Through in-depth case studies of seven multinational companies (MNCs), examined over a period of four years, we identify four distinctive types of KMS - Fragmented, Content-based, Process-based and Capability-based - and their characteristics. These characteristics include both the structure, dimension and flow of the knowledge itself, and the staffing, training and reward systems in place to support the KMS. Relevant organisational factors influencing KMS design and implementation include the level of resource commitment by the headquarters, the structure of the firm, and the distribution of roles between headquarters and subsidiaries. Key external influences include the degree of environmental change and pressures to follow industry norms in technology investment. Our empirical evidence suggests that while some MNCs adopt the same type of KMS for relatively long periods of time, others transit between different KMS types. Moreover, transitions between types may follow either an increased resource commitment and augmented KMS sophistication, or a decreased resource commitment and reduced KMS complexity. Insights from the strategy-structure-process and change management literatures are utilised to examine these transitions between KMS types. Key lessons for MNC managers are provided in relation to both the initial adoption of a KMS and the handling of transitions between different systems.     

Analytical representation of probabilities under the IAC condition

This paper extends the work of Gehrlein and Fishburn (1976) and Gehrlein (1982) by providing a general theorem relating to the analytical representation of the probability of an event in a given space of profiles. It applies to any event characterized by a set of linear inequalities regardless of whether the coefficients defining the inequalities are integer or fractional coefficients. An algorithm for the probability calculation is also suggested. This suggested methodology is used to provide a complete characterization of the vulnerability properties of the four scoring rules studied in Lepelley and Mbih (1994) to manipulation by coalitions in a 3-alternative n-agent society. Received: 21 October 1997/Accepted 19 November 1998     

An individual-based model for competingDrosophila populations

An individual-based model forDrosophila is formulated, based on competition amongst larvae consuming the same batch of food. The predictions of the model are supported by data for single speciesDrosophila populations reared in the laboratory. The model is used to build a simple discrete model for the dynamics ofDrosophila populations that are kept over a number of generations. The dynamics of a single species is shown to give either a stable equilibrium or fluctuations which can be periodic or chaotic. When the dynamics of a species in the absence of the other is periodic or chaotic, we found coexistence or two alternative states, on neither of which the species can coexist.     

Long range planning of paper and board supplies

Most standard textbooks identify three essential elements of effective corporate planning: an information input of appropriate depth, critical appraisal of the company's relative position and application of advanced evaluation techniques. Extension of the vision period, for long range or strategic planning, will unavoidably introduce further complexities into these constituent routines of corporate planning as well as into the strategic decision making process. The author reviews the long term outlook for paper and board suppliers and users and points out the strategic advantages of these basic materials.     

Approche socioclinique de la souffrance au travail1

Suffering at work has become a major social phenomena. This situation has many causes: high performance enhancement, urgency seen as an obligation, pressure for results, but also fear, and the soaring of ‘the battle for places’ (la lutte des places). The psychopathological consequences of pressure at work are now well known: breakdowns, professional exhaustion, work addiction, burnout, harassment. Stress has become an ordinary tool for management. Employees cannot find a meaning to this context, nor can they identify the causes of their ill being or the reasons for the violence they endure. They confront an opaque and paradoxical power. Looking for solutions to the contradictions to which management has given rise without resolving, they become responsible for those difficulties and guilty of their own suffering. These are ‘innocent violences’ in so far as they are justified by an indisputable system of management.