Organizing Routinely Collected Computerized Data Bases for Evaluations of Social Care Systems

This article describes statistical techniques for analyzing data collected by management information systems developed to gather information about children in foster care. The techniques permit comparison of the performance of service providers in arranging for the discharge of children from care. The approach involves the application of both traditional statistical techniques and recently developed techniques of exploratory data analysis.     

Confidence intervals and significance tests for a single trial

Confidence intervals are developed for the location parameter of a continuous, symmetric, unimodal distribution in the casev where only a single observation from the distribution is available. These intervals are similar to those given by Abbott and Rosenblatt (1963), but shorter. The result is extended to include distributions which can be standardized to have unit scale. The procedure is exemplified for the normal distribution and the power of one- and two-sided significance tests are computed under normality.     

Short-term and long-term effects of a public relations campaign on semantic networks of newspaper content: Priming or framing?

This naturalistic pre-test/post-test field experiment studied a university public relations campaign, the “Great Cities Initiative,” for evidence of priming or framing effects on newspaper reporters and editors. The phrase “great cities” in the Chicago Tribune increased 433% during the 16-month post-test, but only 26% of stories identified the campaign source. Several measures of semantic network diversity increased, also supporting priming over framing effects.     

Teaching Information Technology to Human Service Students

Summary

This article specifies the knowledge and skills needed by human service professionals in order to utilize the potential of information technology for better care delivery. The conceptual foundation proposes an integrative approach that views management, case management and treatment as one integrated process in the human service agencies and which must be reflected in the information system design. A course for graduate students that incorporates this concept was developed in two schools of social work during a three-year period and is presented in details.     

中国哲学关于名实、言象意关系论述中的信息认识论思想

中国古代哲学家们关于名与实、言与象、言与意、象与意之间的不完全同一的差异性关系的论述,深刻揭示了名与实、言与象、言与意、象与意之间相互转化和生成的普遍被中介,以及在中介中普遍被改变和建构的性质。这样古老的哲学思想与当代信息认识论所揭示的相关思想直接相通。     

定题服务与以“用”为导向的馆藏结构

如何利用图书馆馆藏为定题服务适时、适用的提供文献资料，建立以用助藏的图书馆馆藏结构，是高职院校图书馆研究的重要课题。     

Risk Assessment Can Be a Game‐Changing Information Technology—But Too Often It Isn't

The printing press was a game‐changing information technology. Risk assessment could be also. At present, risk assessments are commonly used as one‐time decision aids: they provide justification for a particular decision, and afterwards usually sit on a shelf. However, when viewed as information technologies, their potential uses are much broader. Risk assessments: (1) are repositories of structured information and a medium for communication; (2) embody evaluative structures for setting priorities; (3) can preserve information over time and permit asynchronous communication, thus encouraging learning and adaptation; and (4) explicitly address uncertain futures. Moreover, because of their “what‐if” capabilities, risk assessments can serve as a platform for constructive discussion among parties that hold different values. The evolution of risk assessment in the nuclear industry shows how such attributes have been used to lower core‐melt risks substantially through improved templates for maintenance and more effective coordination with regulators (although risk assessment has been less commonly used in improving emergency‐response capabilities). The end result of this evolution in the nuclear industry has been the development of “living” risk assessments that are updated more or less in real time to answer even routine operational questions. Similar but untapped opportunities abound for the use of living risk assessments to reduce risks in small operational decisions as well as large policy decisions in other areas of hazard management. They can also help improve understanding of and communication about risks, and future risk assessment and management. Realization of these opportunities will require significant changes in incentives and active promotion by the risk analytic community.     

Communication in Nuclear Emergency Preparedness: A Closer Look at Information Reception

Preparedness of the general population plays a key role in the effective implementation of protective actions in case of a nuclear emergency (e.g., evacuation or intake of iodine tablets). In this context, a good communication of emergency management actors with the public along the entire cycle of preparedness–response–recovery is of paramount importance. This article aims at providing a better understanding of the way people process communicated messages and the factors that may influence how they do this. In particular, it investigates information reception as part of the information processing in precrisis communication. As a case study, the precrisis communication context was chosen, as it has been tackled to a lesser extent in the literature. The empirical data used for this study originated from a large‐scale opinion survey in Belgium. One topic in this survey addressed the information campaign for the distribution of iodine tablets, in the context of preparedness for nuclear emergencies. The findings of this study demonstrate that systematic predictors have a stronger influence on information reception, as compared to heuristic predictors. The latter are only to a minor extent involved in the reception of emergency preparedness information. The hypothesized pattern—that more specific knowledge about the field relates to a higher reception of information—was confirmed for precrisis communication. Contrary to expectations, results showed that people with a high perception of radiation risks were less attentive to information about protective actions. People with little confidence in authorities were also more likely to have a low reception of information.     

User involvement during information systems development: a comparison of analyst and user perceptions of system acceptance

A sample of 150 users and analysts from multiple organizations and many system projects provided field questionnaire data to test hypotheses about the differences in their perceptions of user involvement (UI) and system acceptance. The Franz and Robey [Franz, C.R., Robey, D., 1986. Organizational context, user involvement, and the usefulness of information systems. Decision Sciences, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 329–356.] instrument was used for data collection and factor analyzed, resulting in more focused and specific measures. Analysis of the data showed that users and analysts did not agree on the user's involvement nor did they agree on their perceptions of the acceptability of the system to the user. Relationships of self-ratings of UI with system usage and system acceptance by the user demonstrated high correlations, which were attributed to the narrow focus of the UI and system acceptance measures rather than the original more global measure. Analyst perceptions of UI showed no correlation with a user's perceptions of system acceptance.