Risk, Trust, and Safety Culture in U.K. Train Operating Companies

Organizational safety culture reflects the attitudes and behaviors that individuals share in considering and reacting to hazards and risks. We first argue that trust is an underdeveloped and important concept in relation to theories of safety culture and high-reliability organizations. The article then reports findings from a two-year qualitative study of train operating companies (TOCs) in the United Kingdom, which sought to explore in detail the linkages between safety culture and the postprivatized railway industry. In-depth interviews and focus groups were carried out with a sample of over 500 employees, from four organizations, and representing all key functional levels. Our analysis suggests that the 1993 privatization, and subsequent organizational restructuring of the U.K. railway industry, has had important repercussions for both safety culture and trust relationships. We explore our findings in relation to three key constructs within "safe organizations" theories (namely, flexibility, commitment, and learning), and discuss how the safe organization model might be usefully supplemented by a consideration of trust issues.     

The knower and the known

In this paper, I address a dilemma in the theory of knowledge and argue that this dilemma can be overcome by invoking the work of two well known social scientists—Marx (here considered as a sociologist) and Piaget (a psychologist). The dilemma considered is that of the relationship between what are here called independent (i.e., non-circular) and relational definitions; each form of definition has been the basis of a particular approach to the knowable (the independent definition being the basis of empiricism and the relational definition being the basis of Hegelianism) and each of these approaches can be shown to be unsatisfactory: empiricism, brilliantly successful in practice, runs itself, at the theoretical level, into the circular and the relational; while Hegelianism, although impregnable in logic, gains such impregnability at the cost of any delimitation and, hence of precision and refutability. It is argued that Marx (a follower of Hegel) as adapted by Piaget, can indeed overcome these difficulties and so present us with a theory of knowledge that makes possible an approach that is both successful in practice and reputable in logic.     

The Common Assessment Framework: the impact of the lead professional on families and professionals as part of a continuum of care in England

This paper utilizes data gathered as part of an exploratory study to assess the costs and impact of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), to examine the impact that the lead professional role had on families and workers. The study found that both families and workers believed the lead professional to be central to the CAF process, providing a range of support, coordinating multi‐agency responses to need and acting as a single point of contact between families and workers. The paper highlights the need for consideration to be given to inter‐agency working, data sharing, training for workers and the capacity implications for those taking on the role. The extent to which the lead professional might be more integrated into the continuum of support for vulnerable children and families is also examined. The paper highlights the need to consider the lead professional's role in not only preventing the need for more intensive services, such as those provided by statutory social work, but also maintaining outcomes achieved once a child protection plan is closed, or a child is reunified with his or her birth family after a period of being in care. The implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.     

Clicking Toward Better Grades: The Use of Student Response Systems in Social Work Education

Faculty members at universities are increasingly shifting their pedagogical focus from traditional lectures to active learning by integrating academic technology such as clickers (i.e., student response systems) into classrooms. However, few studies have examined the effect of clickers on learning outcomes such as test grades, and even fewer studies have evaluated this technology in social work education. This study examined the effect of clickers on learning outcomes in an undergraduate social work course. Findings indicated that frequency of clicker use significantly contributed to increased test scores after controlling for important covariates, suggesting that clickers may be an effective tool in actively engaging social work students and promoting learning. Instructors guidelines for integrating technology into future social work courses are discussed.     

应用改进的荧光原位杂交技术(FISH)定量分析单一细胞内miRNA的表达

在过去的十年,我们对miRNA生源和机理的理解得以快速发展;然而,许多关于miRNA表达与细胞功能如何关联的基本问题依然存在。为了能在未来实现对这个层次的理解,可能需要将单细胞水平miRNA的丰度进行定量,从而绘制细胞表型关系。本文介绍一种高灵敏度并且高效的miRNA检测方法——LNA-ELF-FISH,可以在原位的单一细胞中看见单个miRNA分子     

Flexible Threshold Models for Modelling Interest Rate Volatility

This paper focuses on interest rate models with regime switching and extends previous nonlinear threshold models by relaxing the assumption of a fixed number of regimes. Instead we suggest automatic model determination through Bayesian inference via the reversible jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Moreover, we allow the thresholds in the volatility to be driven not only by the interest rate but also by other economic factors. We illustrate our methodology by applying it to interest rates and other economic factors of the American economy.     

Working on the Revolution in Bahrain: From the Mass Strike to Everyday Forms of Medical Provision

The 2011 Arab Spring uprising with the highest levels of popular support took place in Bahrain. This level of mobilization was due in part to the organizational capacity of trade unions and professional associations, and yet their role in the ‘near-revolution’ has received very little scholarly attention. In contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, where the official trade union federations played an ambiguous or even hostile role as workers began to organize strikes during the protests against Ben Ali and Mubarak, the official General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions not only supported the protests against the Al Khalifa regime, but called for two general strikes. As significant as the strikes were, the work of unpaid volunteers constituted another less recognized, but equally important form of labor activism. Understanding the mass mobilization in Bahrain, and elsewhere, requires an encompassing approach to labor: one that can conceptualize equally the ability of collectivities to stop working, but also the ability to collectively continue to work, even on an unpaid basis. I will illustrate the contradictory role of the labor movement with examples from the Bahrain Teachers’ Association and the Bahrain Nursing Society. The majority of members of both associations were women. Finally, the Bahraini regime punished both forms of labor activism – both the teachers who went on strike, and the nurses who declared they would not strike but continue to work and care for the injured protesters.     

Reviews and Notices

Abstract

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Mortgage Indebtedness in Europe. Reviewed by George K. Holmes.

Statistics of Divorce in France.

Anthropometry: The results of Anthropometry as derived from the measurements of the Students of Amherst College. Amherst, 1892. Pp. 7, Tables.

A University Course in Statistics.

Convention of Commissioners of Bureaus of Labor Statistics.

Statistics of Prisoners, 1890: Statistics of Prisoners, 1890. Collected by the Wardens' Association of the United States and Canada; with an introduction by Roland P. Falkner, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Statistics, University of Penn. Published by the Association, 1892. 800. Pp. 56. Reviewed by A. G. Warner.