Parametric branch and bound

The paper describes a procedure for mixed integer programming that allows branches to be imposed ‘by degrees’, which can subsequently be revised or weeded out according to their relative influence. It is an adaptive approach in which the branch and bound tree can be manipulated and restructured. The approach also yields measures of the costs of imposing the branches that lead to integer solutions, thus providing a built-in form of sensitivity analysis for evaluating the effect of integer restrictions.     

Community e-gateways: locating networks and learning for social inclusion

The provision of community e-gateways (community-based facilities providing public access to computers and the Internet) has been seen as a way to address the 'digital divide', particularly for people from deprived neighbourhoods. In the UK, policy and practitioner literature has stressed that for these centres to be successful they need to have strong social connections and be able to provide opportunities for interactive learning and content creation. Through a detailed analysis of one community e-gateway, which formed part of a wider study of public access provision, this article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of this advice drawing on broader sociological literature relating to social networks, network mapping and communities of practice. It concludes that greater attention needs to be paid to the significance of weak ties, two-way boundary spanning and the resource requirements of social networks for the policy objectives to be fully achieved.     

Has Voluntary Association Activity Declined? Cross‐national Analyses for Fifteen Countries*

Les études antérieures concernant l'adhésion volontaire à des associations aux États‐Unis ont menéà des conclusions contradictoires concernant la diminution du membership. Nous analysons ici des participations nominales et actives à des associations à l'échelle du Canada, des États‐Unis ainsi que de 13 autres pays au début des années 1980 et au début des années 1990. Des comparaisons en fonction du temps sont faites, incluant les syndicats et les organisations religieuses, et excluant ces groupes, avant et après des'contrôles. Les résultats fournissent peu de preuves de déclin, pour le Canada, les États‐Unis ou les autres nations, en particulier pour des adhésions actives. Sans et avec contrôles, les États‐Unis, la République fédérale d'Allemagne et les Pays‐Bas font état d'augmentations significatives d'adhésions actives à des syndicats. Seule l'Espagne affiche des baisses substantielles d'adhésions actives au cours de cette période. Mis à part quelques exceptions, le tableau général en est un de stabilité, sans changement significatif. Previous studies of voluntary association membership in the United States have generated inconsistent conclusions about whether membership has declined. We analyse here both nominal and active association involvements for national samples from Canada, the U.S., and 13 other societies in the early 1980s and early 1990s. Temporal comparisons are made, with union and religious memberships both included and excluded, before and after controls. The results provide little evidence of decline, for Canada, the U.S., or the other nations, particularly for working memberships. Both without and with controls, the U.S., West Germany, and the Netherlands exhibit significant increases in working memberships. Only Spain shows substantial declines in working memberships over the period. With few exceptions, the overall pattern is one of stability, or no significant change.     

Cohort Changes in the Socio-demographic Determinants of Gender Egalitarianism

Arguments about the spread of gender egalitarian values through the population highlight several sources of change. First, structural arguments point to increases in the proportion of women with high education, jobs with good pay, commitment to careers outside the family, and direct interests in gender equality. Second, value shift arguments contend that gender norms change with social and economic development among women and men in diverse positions - traditional and non-traditional alike. Third, diffusion arguments suggest that structural change leads to adoption of new ideas and values supportive of gender equality by non-traditional and innovative groups in society, but that the new ideas later diffuse to other groups through cultural processes. Using the General Social Survey from 1977 to 2006 and comparing the determinants of gender egalitarianism across 86 cohorts born from roughly 1900 through 1985, multilevel models support the diffusion arguments.     

民间组织走出去

美国环保协会的故事开始于50多年前一场关于保护鸬鹚，一种可爱的鸟类的运动。上世纪60年代，美国长岛的科学家惊讶地发现当地鸬鹚幼鸟的数量由于不知名的原因，急剧下滑至正常数量的七分之一。与此同时，秃头鹰、游隼等其他猛禽的数量也出现了同样惊人的跌幅。其中一些科学家通过科学研究追踪问题的根源，发现喷洒杀虫剂DDT（又称“滴滴涕”）是造成这一现象的罪魁祸首。在通过科学的指证赢得了在美国全面禁止DDT使用的官司之后，为了进一步保护人类赖以生存的自然环境，这些科学家成立了美国环保协会。     

Would Palliative Care Patients Benefit from Social Workers' Retaining the Traditional 'Casework' Role rather than Working as Care Managers? A Prospective Serial Qualitative Interview Study

Social workers have made a significant contribution to the developmentand delivery of palliative care. Both palliative care and socialwork are rapidly evolving but, given their changing contextsand increasing workloads, can they sustain compatibility? Advancesin treatment of life-threatening illness mean that people livelonger in a period of palliative care. Social work has undergoneradical change in the wake of the 1990 NHS and Community CareAct and subsequent local-authority modernizations, with socialworkers now given the role of care managers, rather than themore traditional ‘casework’ or therapeutic role.This paper aims to explore the current and potential role ofthe social worker in palliative care for people with cancerand other prolonged life-threatening illness. It draws uponevidence from a prospective qualitative, patient-centred researchstudy, which detailed the experiences of forty people with lungcancer and advanced cardiac failure, and their personal andprofessional carers (Murray et al., 2002). A total of two hundredand nineteen qualitative interviews were carried out. We found that social workers were conspicuous by their absencefrom the lives of these forty vulnerable adults, who were livingand dying in the community with many unmet needs which, potentially,could be met by social-work input. The study highlights sixareas of concern in which social-work assessment and interventioncould have impacted on dying patients’ quality of lifeand that of their carers: loss and dependency, family-centredissues, carers’ needs, practical tasks, emotional andspiritual struggles, and finally, support needs of staff. Theseareas are outlined to explore the territory which a social workermight inhabit if resources and policies permitted.     

Peter C. Fishburn (1936–2021)

Theory and Decision -