Attitudes of social work students towards older people

Demographic ageing is a challenge for many countries. Even though Turkey has a relatively younger demographic composition, the proportion of the older people (65+) within the population is rapidly increasing. Within this framework, older people are becoming more important clients for both social work students and social workers in Turkey. This study aims to reveal the attitudes of social work students towards older people and determine the various factors that affect their views on older persons. In the scope of the project, Kogan's Attitude Towards Old People Scale was applied to 419 social work undergraduate students at a university located in Central Anatolia. The findings showed that social work students scored a mean of 130.96 and they generally had positive attitudes towards older people. The correlation between year of study, gender and age was not statistically significant. However, having lived mostly in urban areas was positively correlated with the mean Kogan scores and this finding was found to be statistically significant. Exposure to personal contact with older people at both the personal and professional levels was influential in shaping attitudes about the older people.     

Optimal acceptance sampling for modules F and F1 of the European Measuring Instruments Directive

ABSTRACT

Acceptance sampling plans offered by ISO 2859-1 are far from optimal under the conditions for statistical verification in modules F and F1 as prescribed by Annex II of the Measuring Instruments Directive (MID) 2014/32/EU, resulting in sample sizes that are larger than necessary. An optimised single-sampling scheme is derived, both for large lots using the binomial distribution and for finite-sized lots using the exact hypergeometric distribution, resulting in smaller sample sizes that are economically more efficient while offering the full statistical protection required by the MID.     

Multi-neighborhood based iterated tabu search for routing and wavelength assignment problem

The routing and wavelength assignment problem (RWA) has shown to be NP-hard if the wavelength continuity constraint and the objective of minimizing the number of wavelengths are considered. This paper introduces a multi-neighborhood based iterated tabu search algorithm (MN-ITS), which consists of three neighborhoods with a unified incremental evaluation method, to solve the min-RWA problem. The proposed MN-ITS algorithm is tested on a set of widely studied real world instances as well as a set of challenging random ones in the literature. Comparison with other reference algorithms shows that the MN-ITS algorithm is able to improve five best upper bounds obtained by other competitive reference algorithms in the literature. This paper also presents an analysis to show the significance of the unified incremental evaluation technique and the combination of multiple neighborhoods.     

The effect of accounting standards on Big Bath behavior

This paper investigates the influence of accounting standards on systematic earnings understatement. To isolate the effect of reporting regulations from those of other institutional drivers of earnings management, Holthausen (2003) proposes analyzing reporting practices in a country undergoing a transition in accounting standards. We respond to this call by analyzing earnings management practices of large German-listed companies before and after their transitions from German GAAP to IFRS. Specifically, we focus on Big Bath behavior following Chief Financial Officer turnovers between 1999 and 2006. Our findings provide evidence of the effect of accounting standards on the existence of this particular earnings understatement pattern. However, while we detect Big Bath behavior for our sample of German GAAP firms, we find no such indication for those firms reporting under IFRS. Controlling for alternative explanations such as self-selection bias does not change our findings. We conclude that accounting standards seem to have a considerable influence on earnings management behavior, independent of managers’ and auditors’ incentives.     

More than Subversion: Four Strategies for the Dominated

This article asks what strategies are available to dominated actors in fields of cultural production. Using archival and biographical materials on Ottoman/Turkish women intellectuals, we show that they effectively used, depending on their social and cultural capital and their past practices, at least four strategies. Apart from the well-theorized strategy of subversion, they could also deploy acquiescence, collaboration, and defiance. These four strategies, we argue, constitute a two-dimensional space defined by loyalty vs. resistance on one hand and the overtness vs. covertness of loyalty or resistance on the other. While much of this space is best understood in terms of reciprocal social exchange, the assumptions of exchange break down in the case of overt resistance, showing that strategy goes beyond negotiation and that the understanding of power as always-already implicated with resistance has limits.     

Systemische Resilienz – Die Perspektiven und das Resilienz-Quadarat

In the article results of resilience research are presented and a systemic concept of resilience is derived, which differentiates the term from other models regarding psychic health. The resilience square shows essential factors for resilience. Based on this the idea of resilience is transferred to systems and organizations. The article deepens the resilience approach of Mohr (2016).     

Moralische Arbeitsteilung

In modernity, organizations are the most powerful actors. All the more important is the “dark side” of organizational morality. While organizations, on the one hand, ensure or claim to ensure efficiency and reliance they have, on the other, a considerable potential to suppress the moral point of view and to produce or fabricate legitimation. The paper concentrates on this dark side—on problems of the moral division of labor, the organization of hypocrisy, legitimation through procedures, rent-seeking and the related corporate power vis-à-vis law, regulation and politics.     

Using Work Values to Predict Post‐Retirement Work Intentions

Work values might be proximal predictors of individuals' late‐career intentions because they serve as guiding principles for the selection, evaluation, and justification of vocational behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between work values and post‐retirement work intentions. The authors investigated individual work values within the structure of 4 higher order values elaborated on by Schwartz et al. ( 2012 ). Relationships between work values and 4 types of post‐retirement work intentions were examined. Data from 1,071 employees of a German logistics company were used to test the hypotheses. The results of a structural equation model indicated that work values were differentially related to the 4 types of post‐retirement work intentions. The identified work value–work type combinations add to the literature on post‐retirement work. Practice implications for promoting positive individual and organizational outcomes are drawn from the results.     

Analysis of Deviance for Hypothesis Testing in Generalized Partially Linear Models

In this study, we develop nonparametric analysis of deviance tools for generalized partially linear models based on local polynomial fitting. Assuming a canonical link, we propose expressions for both local and global analysis of deviance, which admit an additivity property that reduces to analysis of variance decompositions in the Gaussian case. Chi-square tests based on integrated likelihood functions are proposed to formally test whether the nonparametric term is significant. Simulation results are shown to illustrate the proposed chi-square tests and to compare them with an existing procedure based on penalized splines. The methodology is applied to German Bundesbank Federal Reserve data.     

Media and the Intersectional Other

This article presents the findings of an intersectional study on migrant women on German television. Besides content and textual analyses, we conducted focus groups with audiences and interviews with migrant media workers. As the representation of Others was explored through the nodes of production, consumption, and identity, a complicated intersectional practice emerged. We found the televised representations of migrant women to be dominated by (often veiled) women as signifiers of non-integration but also by instances when gendered ethnicity was used as a marketable attribute. The audiences and producers employed various distancing strategies: they criticized specific programs for blatant stereotyping as much as didactic counter-stereotyping while downplaying systemic shortfalls of the coverage. These distancing strategies were intensified by the acceptance of individualized ideologies of success and commodified logics of media production. Ultimately, class appeared as the central demarcating category. On German television a problematic class distinction was articulated through ethnic and gender difference. Female migrants were often “othered” as lower-class. This class discourse absolved middle-class viewers and media workers from engaging in the systemic struggles over female/migrant identities, thus undermining the potential for gender and migrant solidarity and for the dynamic creation of cultural citizenship as a mode of belonging.