Delay and Anxiety in Care Proceedings: Grounds for Hope?

This paper draws on an evaluation of a pilot project in three London boroughs (the ‘Tri-borough’ authorities) which had the aim of reducing the length of care proceedings to 26 weeks, in advance of nationwide moves in the same direction. Rather than looking at this as yet another battleground between professional autonomy and bureaucratic rigidity, the authors focus on the psychological aspects both of court delay itself and of setting time limits, considering the impact of each on the children, parents and professionals involved. The challenge is to balance the pressures of time and the need for thoroughness, being mindful of the uncertainty and anxiety that pervade care proceedings. The pilot succeeded in greatly reducing the average length of care proceedings. Professionals involved in the project, including those whose job was to represent the interests of parents and children, seemed satisfied that this had not been achieved at the expense of thoroughness, and indeed that shorter proceedings might help to reduce the overall level of distress and anxiety that children and parents endure. On the other hand, the new approach adds to the pressures on the professionals themselves. If the changes are to be sustained, the anxiety involved in making these life-changing decisions about children must be recognised, and adequate support offered to those who have to make them.     

工程案例应用提升《钢铁冶金学Ⅱ》教学质量

工程案例在冶金工程学科中的运用方兴未艾。面对传统教学方法的单调枯燥,与实际生产脱节,提出工程案例的选题与课程规划,通过丰富案例资源库、提高双师型队伍比例、搭建虚实结合的教学平台、开展线上线下互动教学等一系列措施,可以保证学生的学习主动性,提高对专业核心课程《钢铁冶金学Ⅱ》的学习兴趣。     

USING A LATE-START RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED PROJECT SCHEDULE TO IMPROVE PROJECT NET PRESENT VALUE*

Although literature on the achievement of monetary objectives in a resource-constrained project environment is limited, the maximization of project net present value (NPV) is an important criterion of project success. This paper presents a procedure for developing a late-start resource-constrained project schedule using the critical path method-material requirements planning. Using an extensive set of problems from the literature, we show that this procedure yields a higher NPV and lower average duration than schedules derived with heuristics that schedule each activity as early as possible. In addition, while the late-start schedule on average was significantly longer than the optimal-duration resource-constrained schedule, no significant difference occurred in the average NPVs of the two scheduling methods.     

Factors influencing the success of PPP at feasibility stage – A tripartite comparison study in Hong Kong

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) have been used extensively in both developing and developed countries in delivering various types of projects, ranging from road construction, railway transport systems to health care facilities and schools. Critical success factors of PPP schemes at the implementation stage were identified. It is however more important for decision-makers to identify the factors for feasibility evaluation of adopting the PPP at the outset. This study aims to explore the key successful ingredients to be assessed at the initial stage of PPP projects as perceived public sector, private consortium and general community so as to attain a “triple win” scenario, via a questionnaire survey and a series of expert interviews conducted in Hong Kong. Survey results indicate that the most critical factor for evaluating the feasibility of PPP projects, especially to the general community, is an acceptable level of tariff. Cost effectiveness and financial attractiveness are the most important evaluation factors as ranked by the public sector and private consortium respectively. In addition, the existence of a long-term demand for the proposed services, availability of strong private consortium, alignment with government’s strategic objectives, as well as reliable service delivery are also rated as highly important to the success of PPP schemes. Addressing the tripartite expectations is indispensable to ensure the feasibility and successful delivery of public services and infrastructure projects via PPP schemes.     

Decision process in one-of-a-kind production

One-of-a-kind production is project business. In any project, the decision process is of importance for a successful outcome. However, there is a need for a more formal approach to decision-making in projects. We have therefore, developed a model of the decision process. It uses three types of decisions: selection, authorisation and plan decisions. Enterprise models together with the project life cycle form a platform for developing a decision model. The life cycle enables a decision chain, whereas the enterprise models allow decisions at different levels. The horizontal decision chain is linked to physical flow of documents and materials. Vertically, decision-making is hierarchically decomposed into levels of different planning horizons and time periods.     

风险时代的社会建设

社会建设的一个基本的功能,是要有效地应付各种社会风险;现代性方案下展开的现代社会工程试图以理性建构的人为秩序来消除不确定性、消除风险,但这种努力却产生了不可控制的意外后果或副作用;这种意外后果或副作用的累积是今日之风险的主要来源;风险社会之风险有三个值得注意的特点,即风险是自反性现代化本身的产物,风险已经全球化,风险的承受和应对主体已经个体化;与这些特点相应,风险时代的社会建设在方略上应该注意以下三个方面:援用并坚持"辅助原则",在坚持个体本位性的基础上重建"社会",激活积极公民权.     

语言景观视角下语言资源的开发利用--内蒙古呼和浩特市语言景观资源个案调查研究

从语言景观视角出发,分析说明了语言景观作为语言资源的重要组成部分的价值作用,通过对内蒙古呼和浩特市语言景观的个案调查,与少数民族语言资源保护工成果相结合,以语言景观全新视角为内蒙古自治区语言资源保护和开发利用提供方法和途径。     

论"云岭先锋"工程的理论意义

中共云南省委在全省范围内实施的"云岭先锋"工程,是结合云南实际努力实践"三个代表"重要思想、加强党的基层组织和党员队伍建设的一项重大战略措施.它对在新形势下加强党的执政能力建设,体现共产党员的先进性,进而促进云南全面建设小康社会,都具有十分重要的意义.     

建筑国际化与CM模式在中国的应用

中国加入WTO后 ,建筑业必须走国际化道路 ,在中国引入和应用CM模式是必要的。根据建筑国际化的趋势和特征 ,可以建立以总承包公司、项目管理公司和监理企业为CM承包主体的基本运作模式 ,但三者的适用情况有所区别。另外 ,在中国应用CM模式还需要相应的配套机制和措施