Incorporating Content on Offenders and Corrections into Social Work Curricula

This article presents suggestions for incorporating content on adult offenders and corrections across diverse curriculum areas, including human behavior in the social environment, practice, research, and social welfare policy. Social work educators are provided with guiding principles for work with offenders and with many concrete strategies for integrating material on this often forgotten population into already existing courses.     

Supply chain management: a supplier perspective

A new way of researching into supply chain management is introduced by adopting a supplier perspective. Details are given of mixed integer linear planning and simulation models. The planning model takes into consideration firm and forecast orders (customer's forecast purchasing orders) and the behaviour of the supplier's suppliers and suppliers' subcontractors. The simulation model takes into account the dynamic behaviour of the supply chain and includes the planning production behaviour of a supplying company based on the planning model. The supplier manager can use the simulation model to determine what kind of parameters most affect company performances and then propose new management rules. Quantitative results that prove the benefits of integrating forecast orders for an aeronautic supplier have been provided.     

Use of Scanning Research in Decision Making: An Examination of the Environmental Imperative and Power-Control Perspective

Environmental uncertainty provides the context for public relations practices. Arguably, environmental uncertainty leads to greater organizational responsiveness to those environments through strategic planning. This survey of 505 American Public Relations Society of America members indicated, however, that perceived environmental conditions were less important to management decision-making than how those conditions were translated or packaged as decision-making inputs through formal environmental scanning mechanisms. Environmental uncertainty had no impact on decision making, once the mediating influence of formal scanning was controlled.     

The Economic Efficiency of Sampling Size: The Case of Beef Trim

The economically optimal sample size in a food safety test balances the marginal costs and marginal benefits of increasing the sample size. We provide a method for selecting the sample size when testing beef trim for Escherichia coli O157:H7 that equates the averted costs of recalls and health damages from contaminated meats sold to consumers with the increased costs of testing while allowing for uncertainty about the underlying prevalence rates of contamination. Using simulations, we show that, in most cases, the optimal sample size is larger than the current sample size of 60 and, in some cases, it exceeds 120. Moreover, lots with a lower prevalence rate have a higher expected damage because contamination is more difficult to detect. Our simulations indicate that these lots have a higher optimal sampling rate.     

An introduction to relationship algebras

Since the introduction and definition of relationship algebras by James (1957), rolatively little use has been made of this theory in experimental design and analysis problems This may be due to the underlying theory of relationship algebras being previously accessible only in books on mathematical structure theory, e.g. van der Waerden (1950) This paper provides a development of the theory of relationship algebras beginning at an elementray level and including only those parts of mathematical structure theory which are essential to this development. An example of its application in derving an analysis due to alling (1967) is presented.     

Enterprising Education: Doing Away with the Public School System

We critically examine the accepted notion that primary education is a legitimate and necessary function of the state. The notion is based upon three tenets: 1) public education is a necessary condition for democracy, 2) the market will not provide equal access and quality of education to all, and 3) education represents an external economy. Each tenet is addressed and evaluated according to its merits. In doing so, we also contrast the fulfillment of the ends implicit in the tenets under state and market provisions. We conclude that the state provision of primary education cannot be justified by these goals, and that market provision is a preferable alternative. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ways out of the sewage sludge dilemma: Connecting administrative and participatory decision making

This paper examines the problem of decisions about the disposal of sewage sludge, in the face of stakeholder groups with varying viewpoints, based on a current case from the state of Lower Saxony in Germany. Like other developed countries, Germany faces the dilemma that sludge arisings are increasing (e.g., because of better water treatment) while disposal options are becoming more scarce. Lower Saxony relies heavily on landfill and agricultural application, but landfill of untreated sludge will be banned after 2005. The state Environment Ministry sees agricultural application as having various advantages, but it faces scepticism from various stakeholders. The ministry has therefore taken steps to encourage a long-term dialogue process with the main stakeholders, including farming organizations, food processors, other landowners such as the churches, and environmental and consumer organizations. The process began with a discussion forum in 1995 that led to the proposal of specific discussions with stakeholders. This paper focuses in particular on the dialogue with environmental and consumer groups. It analyzes the initial positions of the various stakeholders, describes the concrete steps taken so far, describes the ongoing efforts, and critically evaluates the procedures used as well as their implications in terms of the ideas of deliberation and analysis.