‘I Need Help on Mondays,It’s Not My Day. The Other Days,I’m OK’.—Perspectives of Disabled Children on Inclusive Education

This article examines the experience of inclusive education from the perspective of disabled children. We worked with the observations of, and interviews with, 15 children, aged 5–17 who go to a mainstream school. The study is set in the context of a 3‐year research project exploring the practice of inclusive education in Flanders. Here, we report on the key findings from the children’s accounts, focusing on what they had to say about themselves, what they think about school, friends, support and their future prospects.     

On “Black Swans” and “Perfect Storms”: Risk Analysis and Management When Statistics Are Not Enough

Two images, “black swans” and “perfect storms,” have struck the public's imagination and are used—at times indiscriminately—to describe the unthinkable or the extremely unlikely. These metaphors have been used as excuses to wait for an accident to happen before taking risk management measures, both in industry and government. These two images represent two distinct types of uncertainties (epistemic and aleatory). Existing statistics are often insufficient to support risk management because the sample may be too small and the system may have changed. Rationality as defined by the von Neumann axioms leads to a combination of both types of uncertainties into a single probability measure—Bayesian probability—and accounts only for risk aversion. Yet, the decisionmaker may also want to be ambiguity averse. This article presents an engineering risk analysis perspective on the problem, using all available information in support of proactive risk management decisions and considering both types of uncertainty. These measures involve monitoring of signals, precursors, and near‐misses, as well as reinforcement of the system and a thoughtful response strategy. It also involves careful examination of organizational factors such as the incentive system, which shape human performance and affect the risk of errors. In all cases, including rare events, risk quantification does not allow “prediction” of accidents and catastrophes. Instead, it is meant to support effective risk management rather than simply reacting to the latest events and headlines.     

Asteroid Risk Assessment: A Probabilistic Approach

Following the 2013 Chelyabinsk event, the risks posed by asteroids attracted renewed interest, from both the scientific and policy‐making communities. It reminded the world that impacts from near‐Earth objects (NEOs), while rare, have the potential to cause great damage to cities and populations. Point estimates of the risk (such as mean numbers of casualties) have been proposed, but because of the low‐probability, high‐consequence nature of asteroid impacts, these averages provide limited actionable information. While more work is needed to further refine its input distributions (e.g., NEO diameters), the probabilistic model presented in this article allows a more complete evaluation of the risk of NEO impacts because the results are distributions that cover the range of potential casualties. This model is based on a modularized simulation that uses probabilistic inputs to estimate probabilistic risk metrics, including those of rare asteroid impacts. Illustrative results of this analysis are presented for a period of 100 years. As part of this demonstration, we assess the effectiveness of civil defense measures in mitigating the risk of human casualties. We find that they are likely to be beneficial but not a panacea. We also compute the probability—but not the consequences—of an impact with global effects (“cataclysm”). We conclude that there is a continued need for NEO observation, and for analyses of the feasibility and risk‐reduction effectiveness of space missions designed to deflect or destroy asteroids that threaten the Earth.     

Cross-disciplinary problem-solving workshop: a pedagogical approach to anticipate ergonomist engineering design collaboration

The aims of this paper are to present concept and results of an innovative educational model approach based on ergonomics involvement in industrial project. First we present Cross disciplinary Problem solving Workshop by answering three questions:1) What is a CPW: A partnership between Universities and one or several companies, purposes of it are first to increase health, well being, companies teams competencies, and competitiveness, second to train the "IPOD generation" to include risks prevention in design. 2) How does it work? CPW allows cooperation between experience and new insight through inductive methods. This model follows the Piaget (1) philosophy linking concrete world to abstraction by a learning system associating realization and abstraction. 3) Is it successful? In order to answer this third question we will show examples of studies and models performed during CPWs.It appears that the CPWs produce visible results in companies such as new process designs, new methods, and also changes in lectures. However some less visible results remain unclear: How the company personnel evolve during and after CPW? Does CPW motivate our future engineers enough to continuously improve their skills in risk prevention and innovative design?     

Small-scale and extensive hydrogeomorphic modification and water redistribution in a desert city and implications for regional nitrogen removal

There are numerous examples of small-scale hydrogeomorphic manipulations within urban ecosystems. These modifications are motivated both by a need to handle storm drainage and by a human desire for aquatic ecosystems as places for recreation and aesthetics. In the Phoenix Arizona metropolitan area, two examples of these local modifications are artificial lakes and stormwater retention basins. Although lakes are not a natural feature of Sonoran Desert ecosystems, numerous artificial lakes are evident in the region. Retention basins are a common landscaping practice for preventing damage from rare but potentially large storm events. Here we attempt to quantify the heretofore unknown number and extent of these designed aquatic ecosystems and consider their potential impact on hydrologic landscape connectivity and regional nitrogen (N) removal. For lakes, we found that official GIS layers from local and state agencies had significant misclassifications and omissions. We used two published GIS datasets and state impoundment-permit information to determine the number, areal extent, and water source for artificial lakes. We discovered that there are 908–1,390 lakes in the Phoenix area, with the number varying according to level of aggregation. There are no existing GIS data on retention basins, so we employed drywell-permit data to estimate that there may be 10,000 retention basins in the region. Basic data on N stocks in these ecosystems are discussed within the context of the regional N budget. Accurate data on the extent and distribution of these designed ecosystems will be vital for water-resources planning and stormwater management.     

ViSC Social Competence Program

The ViSC Social Competence Program has been implemented in Austrian schools within the scope of a national strategy plan, Together Against Violence. The program is a primary preventive program designed for grades 5 to 8. The prevention of aggression and bullying is defined as a school development task, and the initial implementation of the program lasts one school year. The program consists of universal and specific actions that are implemented through in-school teacher training and a class project for students. The program was evaluated with a randomized intervention control group design. Data were collected from teachers and students. Results suggest that the program reduces aggression in schools.     

Time with sons and daughters

We present a model of parental investment in child quality in which the effectiveness??objectively or as perceived by the parents??of parental childcare depends on the sex of the child. In particular, the time of the same-sex parent is more productive than that of the opposite-sex parent. When parents have equal wages, efficiency considerations dictate that a parent spends more time with a same-sex child than with an opposite-sex child, but parents allocate the same total time to boys and girls, and costs of raising a boy are the same as raising a girl. When wage rates differ, and the mother is the lower-waged parent, it is cheaper to produce child quality of girls than of boys. We show that many of the empirical results in terms of a different time allocation pattern, total amount of time invested in a child, expenditures on child consumption goods, and family size and composition can be explained by this technological difference and the gender wage gap, without relying on parental preferences for girls versus boys. Our analysis is largely diagrammatic.     

“She was a little bit unrealistic”: Choice in healthcare decision making for older people

This paper examines autonomy, choice, options, and power in healthcare decision making for older people. Using discourse analysis and a case study from data gathered as part of an ethnographic field study we critique a common conceptualization of healthcare decision making as patients choosing from an array of options offered by healthcare providers. A discourse of “giving options and being realistic” used by healthcare providers is contrasted with the experience of a single patient's transitional care from hospital to home after hip fracture. This illustrates how a wide variety of actors, institutions, values, and resources take precedence in determining a discharge destination. While the accounts given by healthcare providers cast patient choice in respectful terms, an ethnographic approach illustrates that the “choices” are structured by a discourse which simplifies the complexity of what is offered and who gets to choose. In the case study the patient's choice was subjugated by expertise and institutional concerns; her options were largely illusory; and her autonomy was “at risk” due to her age, poor health, and limited resources. We use Foucault's ideas about discourse and governmentality to question the scope of agency in healthcare decision making. We argue that the conceptualization of informed patients making autonomous choices acts as “misdirection” which deflects problem solving and discussion away from a productive examination of the differences between healthcare system offerings and client needs. We conclude by posing questions to reorient the debate surrounding healthcare decision making for older adults and recommend a more participatory approach to designing social services.     

Second-order refined peaks-over-threshold modelling for heavy-tailed distributions

Modelling excesses over a high threshold using the Pareto or generalized Pareto distribution (PD/GPD) is the most popular approach in extreme value statistics. This method typically requires high thresholds in order for the (G)PD to fit well and in such a case applies only to a small upper fraction of the data. The extension of the (G)PD proposed in this paper is able to describe the excess distribution for lower thresholds in case of heavy-tailed distributions. This yields a statistical model that can be fitted to a larger portion of the data. Moreover, estimates of tail parameters display stability for a larger range of thresholds. Our findings are supported by asymptotic results, simulations and a case study.