Steps in the Right Direction,Against the Odds,An Evaluation of a Community‐Based Programme Aiming to Reduce Inactivity and Improve Health and Morale in Overweight and Obese School‐Age Children

The study describes an evaluation of a 48‐week physical activity and nutritional education programme for overweight/obese school‐age children using quantitative and qualitative methods. The majority of participants were obese or severely obese when enrolled, and while some improvements in body mass index, self‐esteem and engagement in a range of physical activities were noted, difficulties in evaluating a complex community‐based intervention were highlighted. Children, parents and health professionals described a range of benefits from attending the programme but more intensive services are likely to be needed for the most seriously obese children and for those families resisting intervention.     

Heading South: Time to Abandon the ‘Parallel Worlds’ of International Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and Domestic Third Sector Scholarship?

Since third sector research emerged as a full-fledged interdisciplinary academic field during the late 1980s, a separation has usually been maintained—in common with many other social science disciplines—between communities of researchers who are primarily concerned with the study of the third sector in rich Western countries and those who work on the third sector in the so-called developing world. Whilst internationally focused researchers tend to use the language of ‘non-governmental organizations’, those in domestic settings usually prefer the terms ‘non-profit organization’ or ‘voluntary organization’, even though both subsectors share common principles and are equally internally diverse in terms of organisations and activities. Whilst there has long been common-sense logic to distinguishing between wealthier and poorer regions of the world based on differences in the scale of human need, the ‘developed’ versus ‘developing’ category can also be criticised as being rather simplistic and unhelpfully ideological. As the categories of ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ countries become less clear-cut, and global interconnectedness between third sectors and their ideas grows, this paper argues that we need to reconsider the value of maintaining these parallel worlds of research, and instead develop a more unified approach.     

RACIALIZING CULTURE IS ORDINARY1

This article engages a discussion of Raymond Williams claim that culture is ordinary to explore some of the ways in which racializing culture is embedded in everyday interactions and processes of identification that found subjectivity. It argues that there is a pressing need for social policy analysts to come to grips with the mechanisms through which ‘culture’ comes to be racialized and an object/subject of governance and suggests that current, high-profile articulations of the ‘problems’ of multiculturalism, profoundly hinder such a development.     

PRODUCT DIVERSITY,DEMAND STRUCTURES,AND OPTIMAL TAXATION

This article studies optimal taxation in a general equilibrium macroeconomic model with endogenous entry. We compare the constant elasticity of substitution (CES) model to three alternative demand structures: oligopolistic competition in prices, oligopolistic competition in quantities, and translog preferences. Our economy is characterized by two distortions: a labor distortion due to the misalignment of markups on goods and leisure, and an entry distortion due to the misalignment of the consumer surplus effect and the profit destruction effect of entry. The two distortions interact in determining the wedge between the market‐driven and optimal level of product diversity. We show how optimal labor and entry taxes depend on the prevailing demand structure, the nature and size of entry costs, and the degree of substitutability between goods. (JEL E22, E61, E62)     

Evaluation of a Training to Reduce Provider Bias Toward Pregnant Patients With Substance Abuse

The objective of this article is not to present a scientific or systematic study, but to provide an initial framework for designing a training workshop to enhance health practitioners’ (nurses, social workers, physicians, etc.) knowledge regarding substance abuse treatment and to decrease their bias toward substance-abusing women, particularly pregnant women in rural communities. We incorporated the 4 Transdisciplinary Foundations from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Competencies Model, with specific competencies targeted that related to provider bias. After the conference, 52 of the 70 participants completed a questionnaire to self-assess knowledge level and confidence in skill related to substance abuse management. Participant mean scores were statistically significantly higher following the conference than 1 week prior (p < .001) in the area of “gender difference with substance abuse,” moving from an average of 2.6 to 4.5 on a 5-point Likert scale. Our conference was successful in increasing attendees’ knowledge about gender difference and substance abuse among pregnant patients.     

Preparing the next generation of researchers

This paper examines the needs of new and future social work researchers in the light of the overall aims of this particular project. The author is an aspiring ‘new’ researcher and will examine her own personal experience, to date, of being part of a postgraduate research programme in order to clarify how we might best ensure that the next generation of researchers can contribute to the strategy which is being developed. The paper reviews the author's experience of research training to test its adequacy in preparing the next generation to meet the demands required and in consideration of current professional develop ments around social work and social care. The paper will also consider who will be the members of this next generation and how the future agenda for the profession might potentially contribute to the development of a sound professional knowledge base and also influence the wider social science debate. The conclusions of this paper will draw together a number of key issues that have been highlighted so far and give a perspective on these which links values, knowledge and skills in ways which might usefully promote further debate and constructive resolution.     

Master Scheduling in Assemble-To-Order Environments: A Capacitated Multiobjective Lot-Sizing Model

Basic characteristics of an assemble-to-order environment make effective master scheduling extremely difficult. Limited resource capacities and dynamic customer end-item demand contribute to the complexity of the master production scheduling problem. To gain flexibility and responsiveness within this system, the master production schedule (MPS) focuses at the component level. This research proposes a master scheduling technique for manufactured components which combines a multiobjective capacitated multi-item/multi-stage lot-sizing model with an interactive multiple objective optimization solution procedure. To evaluate the model's performance as a realistic and practical master scheduling tool, this study focuses on the National Cash Register (NCR) electronics manufacturing facility in Columbia, South Carolina.     

SOCIAL ATOMISM, HOLISM, AND TRUST

The metatheoretical difference between social atomism and social holism is clarified by analysis of the generic necessity of trust. A theoretical approach to trust can be traced from Durkheim, Simmel, Parsons, and the recent work of Luhmann and Barber. Trust functions as a deep assumption underwriting social order and is not reducible to individual characteristics. Changes in trust alter social relationships. The study of power, exchange, family, and politics illustrates how trust constitutes social reality as emergent and holistic. This helps us understand the formation of interpersonal relationships, the difference between economic and social exchange, and the discrepancy between attitudes toward society and toward particular institutional actors.     

The Practical Significance of Measurement Error in Pulmonary Function Testing Conducted in Research Settings

Conventional spirometry produces measurement error by using repeatability criteria (RC) to discard acceptable data and terminating tests early when RC are met. These practices also implicitly assume that there is no variation across maneuvers within each test. This has implications for air pollution regulations that rely on pulmonary function tests to determine adverse effects or set standards. We perform a Monte Carlo simulation of 20,902 tests of forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV₁), each with eight maneuvers, for an individual with empirically obtained, plausibly normal pulmonary function. Default coefficients of variation for inter‐ and intratest variability (3% and 6%, respectively) are employed. Measurement error is defined as the difference between results from the conventional protocol and an unconstrained, eight‐maneuver alternative. In the default model, average measurement error is shown to be ～5%. The minimum difference necessary for statistical significance at p < 0.05 for a before/after comparison is shown to be 16%. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has deemed single‐digit percentage decrements in FEV₁ sufficient to justify more stringent national ambient air quality standards. Sensitivity analysis reveals that results are insensitive to intertest variability but highly sensitive to intratest variability. Halving the latter to 3% reduces measurement error by 55%. Increasing it to 9% or 12% increases measurement error by 65% or 125%, respectively. Within‐day FEV₁ differences ≤5% among normal subjects are believed to be clinically insignificant. Therefore, many differences reported as statistically significant are likely to be artifactual. Reliable data are needed to estimate intratest variability for the general population, subpopulations of interest, and research samples. Sensitive subpopulations (e.g., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD patients, asthmatics, children) are likely to have higher intratest variability, making it more difficult to derive valid statistical inferences about differences observed after treatment or exposure.