I agreed to go because........examining the Agency of Children within a phenomenon conceptualised as trafficking in Ghana

The legal and policy framework on child trafficking is dismissive of children's agency and regards them as vulnerable personalities. This paper examines the scope of children's agency in their transportation to other communities for fishing in Ghana. Using a phenomenological design, 17 child returnees' views were elicited on their movement for fishing activities. Findings revealed that children's agentive capabilities progressed primarily from consent giving to negotiation. Highlighting the relational and material context within which children's agency unfolds, the study suggests that it is erroneous to generally ascribe the discursive label of ‘innocence’ to children who are considered as trafficked.     

Anticipating Likely Consequences of Lottery‐Based Affirmative Action*

Objectives. To better understand the consequences of whole or partial reliance on test scores as a screening mechanism for college or university admissions or for job placement or promotion. Methods. We introduce a simple hurdles/threshold model to study one particular mechanism that has been recently proposed to generate a “compromise” between race‐normed or gender‐normed standards for acceptance, on the one hand, and the decision to select those with the highest score regardless of race or gender, on the other—a method we call lottery‐based rules with minimum thresholds of acceptance. Results. We show the factors that determine how close acceptance rates for the disadvantaged group under lottery‐based methods will be to the acceptance rates under either race‐normal or pretest‐score‐based mechanisms. Conclusions. We argue that the likely consequences of using this method are not nearly as attractive as they might first appear to reformers.     

Group-testing,halving procedures,and binary search ∗

Group-testing procedures for minimizing the expected number of tests needed to classify N units as either good or bad are described, The units are assumed to have come independently from a binomial population with common probability p of being defective and q = 1-p of being good, Special consideration is given to comparing certain halving procedures with the correspending optimal procedures for the problem of finding one defective if it exists, and the problem of finding all the defectives.     

Application of ordinal correspondence analysis for submerged aquatic vegetation monitoring

The European Water Framework states that macrophyte communities (seaweeds and seagrass) are key indicators of the ecological health of lagoons. Furthermore, the restoration of these communities, especially the Zostera meadows, is one of the main objectives of the Berre lagoon restoration plan. Consequently, a monitoring programme of the main macrophyte species still present in the lagoon was initiated in 1996. This monitoring resulted in a sequence of 11 spatially structured annual tables consisting of the observed density of these species. These tables are processed in this study. First, we specify the principles of Beh's ordinal correspondence analysis (OCA), designed for ordered row/column categories, and compare this method to classical correspondence analysis (CA). Then, we show that OCA is straightforwardly adaptable for processing a sequence of ordered contingency tables like ours. Both OCA and CA are afterwards used to reveal and test the main patterns of spatio-temporal changes of two macrophyte species in the Berre lagoon: Ulva and Zostera. The results we obtained are compared and discussed.     

ADDRESSING THE IMPLEMENTATION PROBLEM: A GAMING APPROACH

Traditionally decision sciences has been plagued with the problem of implementation, i.e., transforming a sound theoretical technique into an operational system. Most researchers who study the problem concentrate on identifying factors which relate to implementation or on identifying the change process required to achieve implementation. In a recent study, Sorensen and Zand [24] demonstrate that the Lewin-Schein change theory explains the process necessary for achieving implementation. While the Lewin-Schein theory explains the required change process, the theory does not address the question of how one brings about change. The purpose of this article is to describe a “gaming” approach for accomplishing change. A case example is given to demonstrate the proposed implementation methodology.     

The role of visa class in the location choices of immigrants in Australia at the regional and neighbourhood scales

Australia’s pro-immigration policies have played a vital role in national population growth, serving to address what would otherwise be chronic labour shortages and population ageing. While migrants to Australian have shown a clear preference for cities and tend to locate with co-ethnics, variations by visa class—employment, family reunification, and asylum—have yet to be fully explored. This paper aims to identify variations in settlement patterns of immigrants in Australia by visa types and the factors underpinning these choices, paying particular attention to ethnic networks and employment opportunities. We apply a series of negative binomial regressions to aggregate census data linked to visa status. At the suburb level, our results show the importance of the presence of compatriots in shaping the location choices of family migrants, with the exception of skilled and humanitarian immigrants from China, Malaysia and Thailand. At the regional level, skilled migrants, including skilled regional migrants, respond to employment opportunities to a greater extent than family and humanitarian migrants.

     

Early social referencing predicts object mastery motivation in infancy: Social antecedents of object mastery motivation

The researchers sought to understand the typical development of social referencing and object mastery motivation in infancy and to determine the relationship between social referencing and object mastery behaviors in infants from 7 to 22 months of age. The study included 36 infants who were followed as part of a longitudinal study of at-risk infants but were not determined to need care in the neonatal intesive care unit at birth. Both mastery behaviors of persistence and success showed a statistically significant effect of age, while social behaviors remained stable from 7 to 22 months. Social behaviors at 7 and 10 months were correlated with persistence at 22 months and success at 16 to 22 months demonstrating that early social referencing predicts object mastery behaviors in later infancy. Further research should determine if this trend extends to early childhood.     

A HEURISTIC PROCEDURE FOR DETERMINING IN-PROCESS INVENTORIES

Most prior studies that examine in-process inventory requirements associated with a manufacturing facility employ an optimizing algorithm; this article proposes a heuristic procedure for determining such requirements. A procedure is given for determining “active” and “banked” work-in-process requirements. The two are combined to give total in-process requirements. A key factor presented in the paper is the relationship between in-process inventory requirements and the “balancing” of a production facility. Most prior researchers examine these problems independently. It will be shown that both problems can be resolved concurrently. The concepts are applicable to both an existing as well as a new manufacturing facility.