Automatic breakpoint detection for retrospective cumulative sum charts

Cumulative sum (cusum) methods can be used for monitoring processes and for retrospective (historical) data analysis. Most software only provides the former. The comment by Williamson that retrospective cusum analysis is a neglected area is still true. Though not in vogue, retrospective cusum analysis is useful for investigations such as benchmarking of processes, identifying causes of process decay, selecting reference data sets for typicality studies, and reporting of historical data. Even those texts which cover retrospective analyses, usually ignore the question of identifying multiple points of change (breakpoints), and present essentially manual methods for assessing single breakpoints. Most users of statistical methods want software solutions that are easy to use and require little user intervention or interpretation. Direct implementation of manual method does not give a user robust solution. Problems are illustrated. Attempts to use monitoring CuSums in retrospective analysis can also lead to errors. A practical recursive method is presented for breakpoint identification and significance assessment, which can be automated. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Refocusing Children's Services Towards Prevention: Lessons from the Literature

Increasingly, western developed countries are committed to improving prevention and early intervention strategies that address risks in all areas of children's lives. This article considers the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of such refocusing activity. Five sets of strategies for refocusing are described: developing and using local evidence; designing, implementing and evaluating new services (alongside de‐commissioning); fiscal control; mainstreaming reforms and ensuring sustainability; and structural reorganisation. Five benefits of such reforms are outlined: improved outcomes; better inter‐agency working; greater efficiency; improved practice and outputs; and enhanced user and staff satisfaction. The article notes ways of mitigating the risks of refocusing and the need for practical methods that connect strategies and overcome obstacles in order to achieve the identified benefits.     

The Delicate Scientist Practitioner

This article offers an alternative understanding of the ‘scientist‐practitioner’ in clinical practice. The ‘dodo bird’ hypothesis or ‘common factors’ findings suggest that the specific technique of a particular treatment protocol, whether supported or not by empirical validation, are not as important as feedback to the clinician as to whether this particular treatment is working or not. A new philosophy of science and cognition suggests that ‘know‐how’ and ‘withness‐knowledge’ is of more importance than any ‘know‐that’ or ‘aboutness’ knowledge. Two hundred years ago Goethe suggested a method of science that was more focused on performativity than representationalism, which is being discovered again by postmodern science and philosophy. This model of science, combined with Levinas' call for an ethics first approach, can provide an alternative to the move towards treatment manuals.     

Emotions,affects and the production of social life

While many aspects of social life possess an emotional component, sociology needs to explore explicitly the part emotions play in producing the social world and human history. This paper turns away from individualistic and anthropocentric emphases upon the experience of feelings and emotions, attending instead to an exploration of flows of ‘affect’ (meaning simply a capacity to affect or be affected) between bodies, things, social institutions and abstractions. It establishes a materialist sociology of affects that acknowledges emotions as a part, but only a part, of a more generalized affective flow that produces bodies and the social world. From this perspective, emotions are not a peculiarly remarkable outcome of the confluence of biology and culture, but part of a continuum of affectivity that links human bodies to their physical and social environment. This enhances sociological understanding of the part emotions play in shaping actions and capacities in many settings of sociological concern.     

Problematizing ‘Relevance’ in the Business School: The Case of Leadership Studies

In recent years, the discourse of ‘relevance’ has risen to prominence in the university‐based business school. At the heart of this discourse is the suggestion that management researchers should align their research practices more closely with the needs of practitioners in external organizations. One important but under‐researched strand of this debate focuses on the way in which ‘relevance’ is pursued by business scholars via forms of practitioner engagement such as management consulting, corporate presentations, executive education and personal coaching. Drawing on extensive semi‐structured interviews, this paper explores the motivations, rewards and tensions experienced by leadership scholars in the process of engaging with practitioners. This study suggests that the pursuit of ‘relevance’ may come into conflict with norms of scholarly conduct, which in turn gives rise to a series of trade‐offs and compromises. Ultimately, the authors argue that the prevailing discourse of relevance provides an alibi for scholars to orient themselves towards practitioners in ways that contravene their academic identity and research ethos (whether post‐positivist, interpretivist or critical).     

Student Life in the Medieval Universities

Oral history research projects are assignments that can foster student engagement and learning in undergraduate survey history courses. However, existing scholarship indicates that these assignments are seldom used in undergraduate survey courses. Since the aims of undergraduate survey history courses are to satisfy graduation requirements, foster critical thinking skills, and provide options for potential major areas of study, there is a need to examine whether engaged learning strategies, such as oral history projects, can serve as a high-impact practice (HIP) in undergraduate history courses. With these premises in mind, the purpose of this action research study is to evaluate whether my five-step oral history research project could serve as a HIP in the undergraduate history survey courses I taught at a two-year college located in metropolitan region of the Southeast. Major findings indicate that oral history research projects can be considered a HIP when grounded in pedagogies that emphasize community-based field work that encourage students to consider diverse perspectives on topics and make real-world connections to content and experiential knowledge.     

European cosmopolitanism and civil society

The discussion of European cosmopolitanism and civil society has failed to take questions of culture seriously enough. While remaining sympathetic to liberal forms of cosmopolitanism, this article considers the view that such proposals fail to make space for the ‘Other’. In the context of histories of nationalist violence, masculinism and consumerism this article discusses the charge that ideas of European civilization need to be reconsidered. In the final part of the article, I discuss the view that cultural feminism and certain versions of multiculturalism have much to contribute towards the European project. However, at this point, I seek to distance myself from essentialist arguments in respect of identity. A generative European cosmopolitanism would do well to take questions of cultural domination seriously without reducing the complexity of modern identities.     

Working at Intimacy: Gay Men's Workplace Friendships

Despite scholarly efforts to challenge the dualistic stereotype of men as rational and women as emotion experts, academics have paid little attention to the issues that arise when gay and lesbian sexualities are introduced into such debates. This article highlights the heterosexist content of much of the research on gender, emotion and organization, and argues the relevancy of investigating the largely neglected topic of intimacy and friendship in the work lives of gay men. Engaging with feminist, queer and sociological research that examines friendship in the lives of individuals who belong to sexual minority groups, I explore in this study the diversity in the way gay men find and work out intimacy in the context of workplace friendships with other gay men and with heterosexual men and women. The data for this article are drawn from in‐depth interviews with ten gay men employed in one UK National Health Service Trust. Study findings problematize conceptualizations of friendships at work as being bereft of intimacy, of little value and clearly distinguishable from business relationships. Dichotomous modes of thinking about the impact of gender and sexuality on intimacy and friendship are also challenged.