Professional accounts of services for disabled children in the context of the 1990s Finnish economic recession

This study examines professional accounts of services for disabled children and the ideologies behind those services in the context of the European economic crisis of the 1990s. The study is based on interview data which were collected among professionals of municipal and central government sectors working in the same Finnish town. The methodological starting-point is that of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The professionals first suggest in their discourse that their services are provided on the basis of uncontrollable, general framework, and ideal professional- or client-based principles, but accounts are recorded in which services were rendered which were in conflict with these ideal ideologies. The study concludes that the discourse of the professionals involved in the study consists of various, conflicting accounts and ideologies.     

Building community capacity in governance and decision making

Civil society is generally understood as the realm within whichpeople can participate collectively and work toward a commoninterest. This article examines the mechanisms for involvingmarginalized groups in this process. The study focuses on parents'experiences with two of Canada's largest community-based healthpromotion programmes for children. The conclusions emphasizethe need to recognize the informal and everyday as importantsites for governance and decision making. In addition, theyadd substance to the claim that women's spaces that focus on‘women's work’ are legitimate sites from which tobuild civil society.     

Antwort zur Diskussion um ?Mehr Wirtschaftsstatistik in der Statistikausbildung für Volks– und Betriebswirte“

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Optimization of the Aflatoxin Monitoring Costs along the Maize Supply Chain

An optimization model was used to gain insight into cost‐effective monitoring plans for aflatoxins along the maize supply chain. The model was based on a typical Dutch maize chain, with maize grown in the Black Sea region, and transported by ship to the Netherlands for use as an ingredient in compound feed for dairy cattle. Six different scenarios, with different aflatoxin concentrations at harvest and possible aflatoxin production during transport, were used. By minimizing the costs and using parameters such as the concentration, the variance of the sampling plan, and the monitoring and replacement costs, the model optimized the control points (CPs; e.g., after harvest, before or after transport by sea ship), the number of batches sampled at the CP, and the number of samples per batch. This optimization approach led to an end‐of‐chain aflatoxin concentration below the predetermined limit. The model showed that, when postharvest aflatoxin production was not possible, it was most cost‐effective to collect samples from all batches and replace contaminated batches directly after the harvest, since the replacement costs were the lowest at the origin of the chain. When there was aflatoxin production during storage, it was most cost‐effective to collect samples and replace contaminated batches after storage and transport to avoid the duplicate before and after monitoring and replacement costs. Further along the chain a contaminated batch is detected, the more stakeholders are involved, the more expensive the replacement costs and possible recall costs become.     

Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Measures of Uncertainty in Model-Based Environmental Assessment: The NUSAP System

This article discusses recent experiences with the Numeral Unit Spread Assessment Pedigree (NUSAP) system for multidimensional uncertainty assessment, based on four case studies that vary in complexity. We show that the NUSAP method is applicable not only to relatively simple calculation schemes but also to complex models in a meaningful way and that NUSAP is useful to assess not only parameter uncertainty but also (model) assumptions. A diagnostic diagram can be used to synthesize results of quantitative analysis of parameter sensitivity and qualitative review (pedigree analysis) of parameter strength. It provides an analytic tool to prioritize uncertainties according to quantitative and qualitative insights in the limitations of available knowledge. We show that extension of the pedigree scheme to include societal dimensions of uncertainty, such as problem framing and value-laden assumptions, further promotes reflexivity and collective learning. When used in a deliberative setting, NUSAP pedigree assessment has the potential to foster a deeper social debate and a negotiated management of complex environmental problems.     

Scheduling with interjob communication on parallel processors

Consider a scheduling problem in which a set of tasks needs to be scheduled on m parallel processors. Each task \(T_i\) consists of a set of jobs with interjob communication demands, represented by a weighted, undirected graph \(G_i\). The processors are assumed to be interconnected by a shared communication channel, which can be used by jobs to communicate among each other while being processed in parallel. In each time step, the scheduler assigns jobs to the processors and allows any processed job to use a certain capacity of the channel in order to satisfy (parts of) its communication demands to adjacent jobs processed in the same step. The goal is to find a schedule with minimum length in which the communication demands of all jobs are satisfied. We show that this problem is NP-hard in the strong sense even if the number of processors is constant and the underlying graph is a single path or a forest with arbitrary constant maximum degree. Consequently, we design and analyze approximation algorithms with asymptotic approximation ratio \(\min \{1.8, 1.5 \frac{m}{m-1}\}+1\) if the underlying graph G, the union of the \(G_i\), is a forest. For general graphs it is \(\min \left\{ 1.8, \frac{1.5m}{m-1}\right\} \cdot \left( \text {arb}(G) + \frac{5}{3}\right) \), where \(\text {arb}(G)\) denotes the arboricity of G.     

Kommunikationsthemen im Coaching

Communication is present in any human interaction. Although it is not always focused as a specific goal the enhancement, development and maintenance of conversation skills is an essential task in coaching processes. Especially for academics communication topics are of considerable importance. An overview specifying career stage and typical communication issues is introduced for professors and young academics. Two detailed case studies shed light on the concrete work on conversation skills in academic coachings.