Establishing best practice university research funding strategies using mixed-mode modelling

This paper develops a model representing the university research funding problem under a performance based research funding (PBRF) scheme during the ‘lead-up period’ using a mixed-mode modelling approach (involving soft and hard models) and suggests a solution heuristic. The resultant model facilitates the development of ‘best practice’ strategies to assist in raising the level of research quality and participation, thus placing the university (or academic unit) in the best possible position for facing the final hurdle, the formal research assessment process. This assessment process constitutes the ‘positioning problem’, for which models already exist to assist individual universities to adopt the most favourable strategy. However, the ultimate position of the university depends on the results from the lead-up period. The suggested model facilitates ‘research enhancement’ strategy formulation, evaluation and revision and actively involves the researchers themselves. Benchmarking, an Expert Panel (operating on panel consensus) and subjective strategy impact evaluation are the key tools used. The suggested methodology relies on the knowledge, wisdom and experience of the researchers themselves and will hopefully facilitate the achievement of an academic unit's research goals over the lead-up period preparing them for the ‘positioning problem’. The paper also offers some suggestions as to how to establish and obtain maximum usefulness from the expert panel. Lastly, the suggested solution to the suggested model is user friendly, requiring no more than the use of a spreadsheet.     

Disability on a Different Model: glimpses of an Asian heritage

The paper reviews common uses of models and terminology, then sketches a few social responses to disablement in historical Zoroastrian, Jaina and Daoist philosophies. Accompanying a discussion of the 'merits of uselessness', Chuang-tzu's holistic social model is reconstructed. A Buddhist tale of 'hunchback Khujjutara' suggests that karma may usefully be seen as an educational, rather than retributive force. Contested histories of blind Japanese and Chinese people, and the dramatic enactment of contradictory behaviour towards them, support the view that Asian meanings of disablement should not be forced into modern European categories, but may challenge and refresh them.     

Differences in Perception of Risk Between People Who Have and Have Not Experienced Salmonella Food Poisoning

It is believed that food hygiene precautions in domestic kitchens are an important strategy in efforts to reduce the incidence of sporadic food poisoning, but recent research has shown that people who have suffered food poisoning handle the same types of foods and adopt similar food hygiene precautions in their kitchens to the rest of the population. This suggests the need to examine other factors. A case-control study of sporadic Salmonella food poisoning was conducted to investigate several domestic kitchen risk factors. Measures of perception of risk, knowledge, and control associated with food poisoning in case and control respondents are reported here. It was found that perceived personal risk from food poisoning in the home was less than perceived risk to other people. In contrast, ratings of personal knowledge about food poisoning and personal control over food poisoning in the home were seen to be greater than other people's knowledge and control. There were no differences between the cases and the controls in their ratings of knowledge about food poisoning or their control over food poisoning. However, cases perceived their personal risk from food poisoning to be higher than controls. Both case and control samples exhibited optimistic bias but this was reduced in the case sample, suggesting that experience with food poisoning may reduce optimistic bias.     

Community,Individual or Information Development? Dilemmas of concept and culture in South Asian disability planning

From the 1820s to the present, disability planning in South Asia has faced hard choices, compounded by the submersion of indigenous concepts in well-intentioned western exports of welfare ideologies and eurocentric social sciences. Cultural imperialism continues, with western evangelists insisting that South Asian disability development be seen in terms of human rights and community-based rehabilitation, regardless of the actual strengths and weaknesses of communities. Reconceptualisation of disability planning, focusing on information factors of concept, knowledge, skills, design and feedback, has been suggested as an alternative approach. However, the associated information media, while offering hope to millions, will again divide those who gain access from the hundred-millions who remain info-poor. Western information concepts risk overwhelming indigenous knowledge and diminishing the cultural confidence needed for South Asians to find their own appropriate solutions. To counteract this tendency, a strong base of Asian disability history is needed.