Scheduling a multi-stage production system with startup delays

The problem treated is that of multi-stage scheduling as affected by the interdependence of successive stages. An algorithm is developed which incorporates startup delays as analytical functions of cycle times and production rates at adjacent stages. This is accomplished in part by imposing integer multiple restrictions on the relationship between the cycle times at adjacent stages. Total cost is then minimized for a given set of integer multiples.     

Is There a Place for Biopsychosocial Formulation in a Systemic Practice?

There is a long history of literature concerning integrative practice and how a systemic practice can fit with other models of therapy Much of this literature has focused on establishing a space for systemic therapy within the dominant medical paradigm, and exploring how the medical model can be enhanced by systemic ideas. The outcome has been better practice, especially in child and adolescent mental health. Interestingly, however, there has been less discussion of the converse: the family therapy literature has rarely considered whether or not systemic practice itself can be enhanced by ideas from the dominant medical model. This article proposes that a biopsychosocial formulation can enhance systemic practice by: (I) holding clinicians accountable for their thinking; (2) facilitating a rigour and attention to detail that may prove useful when therapy falters; (3) opening up other possibilities for intervention; and (4) providing a way to engage with the dominant medical paradigm and support clients in negotiating their way through this system. Potential problems nevertheless arise when integrating a biopsychosocial formulation into a systemic framework. This article identifies these problems and presents ideas for how they can be managed in practice.     

Risk of Antibiotic-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Dispersion from Hog Farms: A Critical Review

The World Health Organization has declared antibiotic resistance “one of the biggest threats to global health.” Mounting evidence suggests that antibiotic use in industrial-scale hog farming is contributing to the spread of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. To capture available evidence on these risks, we searched peer-reviewed studies published before June 2017 and conducted a meta-analysis of these studies’ estimates of the prevalence of swine-associated, antibiotic-resistant S. aureus in animals, humans, and the environment. The 166 relevant studies revealed consistent evidence of livestock-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in hog herds (55.3%) raised with antibiotics. MRSA prevalence was also substantial in slaughterhouse pigs (30.4%), industrial hog operation workers (24.4%), and veterinarians (16.8%). The prevalence of swine-associated, multidrug-resistant S. aureus (MDRSA)—with resistance to three or more antibiotics—is not as well documented. Nonetheless, sufficient studies were available to estimate MDRSA pooled prevalence in conventional hog operation workers (15.0%), workers’ household members (13.0%), and community members (5.37%). Evidence also suggests that antibiotic-resistant S. aureus can be present in air, soil, water, and household surface samples gathered in or near high-intensity hog operations. An important caveat is that prevalence estimates for humans reflect colonization, not active infection, and the health risks of colonization remain poorly understood. In addition, these pooled results may not represent risks in specific locations, due to wide geographic variation. Nonetheless, these results underscore the need for additional preventive action to stem the spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens from livestock operations and a streamlined reporting system to track this risk.     

‘Cycles of disadvantage’ revisited: young people,families and poverty across generations*

ABSTRACT

One of Andy Furlong’s abiding concerns was to show how the problems of working-class youth are often, straightforwardly, the outcome of inequalities in employment opportunities. On rarer occasions, however, this explanation fits less well. Some young people grow up in families where poverty seems more deeply embedded and inherent to those families. Here, old ideas about a cultural ‘underclass’ can be tempting to politicians and policy makers. Our qualitative research, with 20 families living in extremely deprived U.K. neighbourhoods, showed that neither a simple lack of job opportunities nor ‘cultures of worklessness’ explained why hardship persisted for them. Our argument is that circumstances which appear to fit with the idea of an inter-generational, cultural ‘underclass’, in fact, have their provenance in a semi-permanent constellation of external socio-economic pressures bearing on successive generations of families over decades. Examples did include a shared context of declining job opportunities but extended to a contracting and disciplinary Welfare State, punitive criminal justice systems, poor-quality education and the physical decline of working-class neighbourhoods. We take one example – the destructive impact of local drug markets – to uncover the complex, obscure processes that compound the disadvantage faced by working-class young adults and their families over generations.     

‘Doing Life’: Gender Relations in a Night Nursing Sub‐Culture

This paper explores a night nursing sub‐culture which is struggling to survive. The context is the NHS in the UK. This exclusively female group within an organization numerically dominated by women evokes hostile reactions from other cultural groups within the NHS, based on its perceived espousal of ‘female’ ways of being. Increasingly threatened by the new managerialism of the NHS, the permanent night shift faces extinction as a group. This paper describes the night nurse culture as it exists in a general hospital and offers some insights into the way that gender relations evolve to sustain male power in an organization where women are numerically dominant.     

The dynamic,complex and diverse living and care arrangements of young New Zealanders: implications for policy

The living arrangements of young people in New Zealand are diverse and often complex. In this article we report the range of care and living arrangements of 209 15-year-old New Zealanders, 47 of whom identified as Māori. These young people were participants in the second generation of a cohort study. Data were collected from their parents via a life history calendar and analysed for variety and consistency of care arrangements, household membership and transitions. Few participants had a consistent pattern of parental care arrangements and most had experienced multiple changes in household composition and frequent changes of address. We conclude that the whānau/family lives of many young New Zealanders are complex and dynamic. These observations contrast with the conventional notions of family life that form the basis for New Zealand’s family policies. We argue that social policies and services impacting on young people need to reflect the lived reality of young people if they are to meet young people’s needs.     

Digitization and materiality: researching community memory practice today

Among the most deep‐seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced forgetting. Technology critics and sociologists of memory alike argue that daily exposure to overwhelming flows of information is undermining our ability to connect and synthesize past and present. Acknowledging the salience of these concerns our approach seeks to understand the contemporary conditions of collective memory practice in relation to processes of digitization. We do so by developing an analysis of how digital technologies (image and audio capture, storage, editing, reproduction, distribution and exhibition) have become embedded in wider memory practices of storytelling and commemoration in a community setting: the Salford Lads Club, an organization in the north of England in continuous operation since 1903. The diverse memory practices prompted by the 100th anniversary of the Club's annual camp provide a context in which to explore the transformations of access, interpretation and use, that occur when the archives of civic organizations are digitized. Returning to Halbwachs' (1992) seminal insight that all collective memory requires a material social framework, we argue, contrary to prevailing characterizations of digitization, that under specific conditions, digital resources facilitate new forms of materialization that contribute to sustaining a civic organization's intergenerational continuity.