Academic Affiliations of Those Published in Social Work Journals: A Productivity Analysis, 1989–1993

Abstract

The academic affiliations of the authors of all articles published in six social work journals between 1989 and 1993 were reviewed and tabulated to produce a ranking of the colleges and universities whose faculty are making the most substantive contributions to the social work literature. The results of this analysis are compared with the findings of two similar, previously published studies covering the five-year periods of 1979-1983 and 1984-1988.     

Urban ecosystems and sustainable urban development—analysing and assessing interacting systems in the Stockholm region

In order to build competence for sustainability analysis and assessment of urban systems, it is seen as essential to build on models representing urban form, landuse and transportation, urban metabolism, as well as ecological processes. This type of analysis of interacting sub-systems requires an advanced model integration platform, yet open for learning and for further development. Moreover, since the aim is to increase urban experience with ecosystem management in the wide sense, the platform needs to be open and easily available, with high visualisation capacity. For this purpose, the LEAM model was applied to the Stockholm Region and two potential future scenarios were developed, resulting from alternative policies. The scenarios differed widely and the dense urban development of Scenario Compact could be visualised, destroying much of the Greenstructure of Stockholm, while Scenario Urban Nature steered the development more to outer suburbs and some sprawl. For demonstration of the need for further development of biodiversity assessment models, a network model tied to a prioritised ecological profile was applied and altered by the scenarios. It could be shown that the Greenstructure did not support this profile very well. Thus, there is a need for dynamic models for negotiations, finding alternative solutions and interacting with other models. The LEAM Stockholm case study is planned to be further developed, to interact with more advanced transport and land use models, as well as analysing energy systems and urban water issues. This will enable integrated sustainability analysis and assessment of complex urban systems, for integration in the planning process in Stockholm as well as for comparative sustainability studies between different cities, with the goal to build more sustainable urban systems and to increase urban experiences in ecosystem management.     

Partnerships in Transition: Managing Organizational and Collaborative Change

Despite the abundance of literature on collaboration, very little attention is devoted to exploring the how partnerships transition over time. This article reports the findings of a study that examined how a mature partnership adjusted to a new administrative team while moving forward with a strategic plan to advance the partnership's mission. Key informant interviews revealed that when stable leadership is not present during transitional phases, the broker organization's capacity to facilitate the collaborative effort will be limited when priorities shift toward maintaining its organizational capacity for survival instead of the collective goals of the partnership.     

Pareto utility

In searching for an appropriate utility function in the expected utility framework, we formulate four properties that we want the utility function to satisfy. We conduct a search for such a function, and we identify Pareto utility as a function satisfying all four desired properties. Pareto utility is a flexible yet simple and parsimonious two-parameter family. It exhibits decreasing absolute risk aversion and increasing but bounded relative risk aversion. It is applicable irrespective of the probability distribution relevant to the prospect to be evaluated. Pareto utility is therefore particularly suited for catastrophic risk analysis. A new and related class of generalized exponential (gexpo) utility functions is also studied. This class is particularly relevant in situations where absolute risk tolerance is thought to be concave rather than linear.     

Odd Couples: A History of Gay Marriage in Scandinavia

Richard Bauman, Let Your Words Be Few: Symbolism of Speaking and Silence among Seventeenth‐Century Quakers (1983), viii + 168 (Cambridge University Press, £19.50, paperback £6.50).

Richard B. Sheridan, Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680–1834 (1985), xxii+420 (Cambridge University Press, £25.00).

Alice Goldstein, Determinants of Change and Response among Jews and Catholics in a Nineteenth‐Century German Village (1984), iv+48 (Jewish Social Studies Monograph Series 3, New York, distributed by Columbia University Press: New York and London, n.p.).

Rita Aldenhoff, Schulze‐Delitzsch. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Liberalismus zwischen Revolution und Reichsgrundung (1984), 245+notes and index (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden‐Baden, n.p.).

Louis Perouas, Refus d'une religion, religion d'un refus en Limousin rural, 1880–1940 (1985), 245 (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, paperback 120F). (Refusal of a Religion, Religion of Refusal in the Rural Limousin, 1880–1940.)

Gordon Phillips and Noel Whiteside, Casual Labour: The Unemployment Question in the Port Transport Industry 1880–1970 (1985), x+324 (Clarendon Press, £25.00).

American Family History: A Historical Bibliography (1984), xii+282 (ABC‐Clio Research Guide 12, Clio Press, Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford, £30.50).     

中国与西方过程思维中的内在超越性

中国传统的儒释道三个哲学世界观,都是过程思想。宇宙基本的二重性,也很受怀特海的青睐,恰如中国古典哲学中的阴阳概念。亚洲哲学所强调的内在超越性是一种超越经典认知方式的人类经验的内在愿景。对支撑意识的神经生物机制的研究表明,文化的差异可能在特定的大脑激活模式中找到其根源。中国古典哲学多基于直觉性解释,关注怎样的问题,主要是由右脑半球主导的。西方哲学则主要涉及左脑半球体现关注什么问题的精神活动。可是,在深层意识反思方面,大脑的不平衡并不能阻止我们通过整个大脑的作用,用终极概念来给经验现实一个最终的、纯粹的解释。因而,内在超越性将不再是依赖于文化的,而是东、西方所共有的一种普遍意识。     

Linking illicit substance misuse during pregnancy and child abuse: what is the quality of the evidence?

In most Australian states, legislation makes provision for professionals to report their concerns about the future welfare of an unborn child to appropriate authorities. The legislation establishes guidance for the implementation of family supports to minimize future child protection involvement. Given the legislation and the potential benefits, empirical research linking substance misuse during pregnancy and child protection involvement is relatively limited. We review 21 original studies linking substance misuse during pregnancy with child protection outcomes and the potential generalizability of results to the Australian context. The majority of studies reviewed were conducted in the USA and were mostly retrospective. Other differences between studies include sample sizes, comparison groups, study setting, participants’ ethnicity and pattern of drug use. In the postnatal literature, it is well established that child abuse is associated with a complex array of factors including partner, as well as broader family factors and yet, the studies reviewed focus upon maternal substance abuse without including the wider context. Given the available evidence‐based literature, it is difficult to come to definitive conclusions that can assist clinicians involved in frontline decision‐making for early intervention. Well‐designed research, accessible by antenatal health‐care professionals, is needed to adopt an evidence‐based approach to risk assessment in the prenatal context.     

Therapeutic Responses to Communities Affected by Disasters: The Contribution of Family Therapy

This article is underpinned by the premise that for recovery, healing and post‐traumatic growth to occur after traumatic events such as technological and natural disasters, massacres and terrorist attacks, effective therapeutic services need to be offered at both the individual and community level. Frequently, responses to such traumatic instances have been conceptualised as discrete, polarised interventions offered by various groups of health and welfare professionals at various points post the traumatic event. Traditionally when therapeutic interventions are considered, many practitioners assume that the response would, and should, focus primarily and narrowly, on individuals or their families and the symptoms of post‐traumatic stress. Conversely, the perceived role of community wide interventions has been unnecessarily limited to disaster relief or organised emergency responses most usually offered at the time of the crisis. The consequence of these limited understandings is an apparent failure to explore fully the therapeutic or mediating role of social or community support in surviving trauma. Interventions encompassing the level of community might be therapeutic in two fundamental ways. First, if practitioners embraced ideas from systemic family therapy literature, ideas that acknowledge the importance of social networks, this would encourage a more holistic vision of resilience and recovery. Second, if practitioners recognised that whole communities and social networks might also be traumatised, they could provide support and interventions oriented toward healing at this broader level.