Effective strategies for socio-educational intervention during the process of transition to adult life of unaccompanied minors from Africa

The arrival of unaccompanied minors from Africa in Spanish territory has been a constant since the last decade of the twentieth century. This migratory phenomenon has forced the child welfare system to attend to thousands of migrant children. The transition to adult life is a decisive stage in overcoming the situation of social exclusion. This research aims to analyse which socio-educational intervention strategies are effective during the process of transition to independent living with unaccompanied minors of African origin. We designed a qualitative research according to the grounded theory, which we divided into two phases. Twenty-nine young people (26 men and 3 women) participated. In phase 1, we performed two focus groups (N = 11), and in phase 2, we conducted longitudinal follow-ups (N = 18) for 24 months through 180 interviews. The results indicate the effectiveness of designing socio-educational accompaniment, prioritizing spaces of trust from which to attain the goals of emancipation. Young people consider effective those strategies that favour their knowledge of the social, labour and legal reality of the host society, designed considering each minor's individualized situation. We concluded that professional involvement acts as a buffer, reducing the bureaucratic obstacles implemented by the Spanish government.     

Markov chain Monte Carlo exact inference for binomial and multinomial logistic regression models

We develop Metropolis-Hastings algorithms for exact conditional inference, including goodness-of-fit tests, confidence intervals and residual analysis, for binomial and multinomial logistic regression models. We present examples where the exact results, obtained by enumeration, are available for comparison. We also present examples where Monte Carlo methods provide the only feasible approach for exact inference.     

Indicators of information and communication technology adoption in the nonprofit sector: Changes between 2000 and 2004

With the knowledge that information and communication technology (ICT) has brought about significant changes in the structure and functioning of businesses, this research provides information about the changes that have occurred in ICT adoption in nonprofit organizations between 2000 and 2004. Using archival data, it specifically investigates various indicators of ICT adoption and adoption readiness factors. Results illustrate that nonprofit organizations are beginning to position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities provided by ICT adoption.     

Costs of Extending the Noncontributory Pension Program for Elderly: The Mexican Case

Population aging coupled with high poverty rates among older persons and a lack of access to social-security benefits or traditional support systems have led governments in low and middle-income countries to introduce non-contributory pension programs for the elderly. This article reviews a non-contributory pension program introduced in Mexico in 2007 that has since expanded greatly. We use a variety of sources to estimate current and future costs of this program.     

Inter-organizational Coordination in the Wild: Trust Building and Collaboration Among Field-Level ICT Workers in Humanitarian Relief Organizations

As many NGOs find themselves responding to the same crises, they have realized the potential benefits of coordinating their information and communication technology (ICT) activities—sharing satellite communications and internet access, sharing disaster assessment information—and have created cross-organizational coordination bodies. Coordination at the headquarters level across organizations has proven to be insufficient, and some bodies are now engaging ICT personnel in their field offices in coordination efforts. This case study presents the findings of one body’s field office coordination efforts among its ICT workers, where trust building through collaborative activities is revealed to be essential elements in successful coordination across organizations.     

The dynamics of hapū research relationships

Abstract

The Whakaki Lake Trust has a long history of being an active kaitiaki of Whakaki Lake and has developed a hapū-based restoration and enhancement programme at the Lake property. Part of this programme has involved working with a range of external agencies and researchers. Research relationships have become an important part of the restoration process to build the capability and capacity of hapū to execute activities associated with restoration. In addition, relationships have provided an opportunity to strengthen and expand the knowledge base that hapū can draw upon to inform ecological restoration and resource management decisions. Some of these relationships have been adversarial and a source of much frustration. As a consequence the Trust has developed very clear expectations and policy around working with others. My experience of developing a doctoral research project with Whakaki Lake Trust is used here to discuss hapū expectations of research and resultant academic dilemmas.     

Conceptual framework for measuring carbon footprint in supply chains

Over the last few years, the fight against climate change has become one of the main topics of international debate. Hence, consumer behaviour has begun to change as they have started to assess the environmental impacts of the products and services they buy. Although various methods exist for measuring environmental (e.g. carbon) impacts, there is no international consensus about the most appropriate one. In addition, calculations can also be affected by limited data availability and uncertainty surrounding the value of key variables. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for measuring and analysing the carbon footprint in supply chains. This research contributes to the knowledge and practice of green supply chain management, at the corporate level, by providing robustness. This aids the decision-making process by identifying strategies in order to reach the efficiency that can be achieved by reducing CO₂ emission over the supply network. The framework is validated using real data from a supply chain belonging to the agro-industrial sector. Finally, these results and experience is generalised in order to show the difficulties and challenges in the measuring task.     

A proposal for a new PhD level curriculum on quantitative methods for drug development

This paper provides an overview of “Improving Design, Evaluation and Analysis of early drug development Studies” (IDEAS), a European Commission–funded network bringing together leading academic institutions and small‐ to large‐sized pharmaceutical companies to train a cohort of graduate‐level medical statisticians. The network is composed of a diverse mix of public and private sector partners spread across Europe, which will host 14 early‐stage researchers for 36 months. IDEAS training activities are composed of a well‐rounded mixture of specialist methodological components and generic transferable skills. Particular attention is paid to fostering collaborations between researchers and supervisors, which span academia and the private sector. Within this paper, we review existing medical statistics programmes (MSc and PhD) and highlight the training they provide on skills relevant to drug development. Motivated by this review and our experiences with the IDEAS project, we propose a concept for a joint, harmonised European PhD programme to train statisticians in quantitative methods for drug development.     

Hospital Performance and Regional Equity

The objective of this article is to see whether or not the attainment of regional equity within the hospital sector has involved any sacrifice in hospital performance.¹ For most health services providing medical care free of charge, regional equity is usually an important objective; but when doctors decide who gets into hospital and for how long regional equity may be difficult to achieve in practice. We look at certain indicators of hospital inpatient performance in relation to regional equity within the hospital sector in both England and Wales and Czechoslovakia. The comparison with Czechoslovakia is an interesting one because that country is as much concerned with regional equity in its hospital service as is the United Kingdom (UK). At the same time there have been substantial differences between the two countries in the availability of hospital resources.