Enabling children’s deliberation in deliberative systems: schools as a mediating space

In recent years, there has been a growing scholarly interest in conceptualising schools beyond their educational functions, as sites and agents of democracy. Yet this interest is often underpinned by a narrow conception of democracy, focusing solely on schools’ public and social aspects. To capture the democratic potential of schools more fully, this article suggests adopting a deliberative systems approach, which conceptualises democracy as differentiated yet linked sites of democratic communications and views schools as one such site. Using this approach as a broader framework and drawing on the fieldwork conducted in two Japanese schools, this article identifies the condition under which schools can become a meaningful part of deliberative systems. It reveals that schools contribute to deliberative systems when they serve as a bridge between children’s everyday practices and deliberative actions in the public space. In light of the findings, this article suggests conceptualising schools as a ‘mediating space’.     

Monitoring S3: Key dimensions and implications

Our work analyses the implications of a smart specialisation strategy (S3) monitoring model based on a system that considers three main axes linked to the logic of the strategies: output/results, smart specialisation process, and a learning component, on which we build our main approach. This strategic learning is based on the logic that S3 presents a new paradigm within the innovation policy scope that requires the inclusion of monitoring schemes that integrate the assessment of the dynamic process under which both public administration and other innovation stakeholders learn and improve their activities (within and without the strategy) thanks to the learning gathered throughout S3 (and its instruments and projects) implementation. The article also discusses this logic within the current and the next programming period for S3, and the role monitoring has or will have, while analysing the opportunities and challenges it presents.     

Separations: A Personal Account of Bowen Family Systems Theory

This paper is a personal account of my own family of origin research. It explores the impact of separations from parents, nuclear family, and extended family through a Bowen family systems theory perspective using concepts pertaining to Bowen theory such as chronic anxiety, differentiation of self, multigenerational family process, and the emotional system. An outline of the process of doing research in ‘vivo’ with my mother as well as conversations with my supervisor are included. Theoretical differences between individual and system models are discussed. A Bowen theoretical approach to the anxiety of separations is investigated. The efficacy of engaging in family of origin work and the effects of thinking systems is examined in light of how it assisted me to view family members, family system disturbances, and clients’ emotional systems more objectively.     

Understanding Client Communities Spatially for Developing Effective Interventions: Application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Technology for Program Planning in Health and Human Services Agencies

Social workers are better equipped to understand the need to incorporate geographical aspects pertaining to their clients’ lives as part of their practice, given the significant influence these factors have on client well-being. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is a useful tool for administrators and planners to make informed decisions regarding human service programs including examining program outcomes and impact as well as streamlining program implementation. This article synthesizes the literature to date on GIS in health and human services with examples of real world applications.     

系统工程思想视角下三产融合振兴民族村落的路径——基于贵州批林村的经验探索

农村三产融合是一个由多种要素组成的系统工程。研究基于对贵州花溪区批林村的田野调查,发现：目前批林村对三产融合进行探索的电农融合、工农融合和文旅融合项目在实施过程中存在一些阻碍,具体包括发展资金较为匮乏,基础设施难以建设;技术渗透能力不强,新型产业难以发展;村落建设人才短缺,项目规划难以推进;三产融合程度较浅,产业增值难以实现;利益联结机制欠缺,农民利益难以保障等。针对批林村现实存在的典型问题,基于系统工程思想的指导,研究为三产融合振兴民族村落构建出以下发展路径：一是完善系统顶层设计,统筹三产融合发展思路;二是精准定位发展要素,抓住三产融合关键环节;三是合理布局结构关系,优化三产融合整体功能;四是创新融合发展方式,实现三产融合系统升级;五是加强后续保障机制,促进三产融合稳步运营。     

高校实施ISO9000标准的若干问题探讨

ISO9000族标准是国际标准化组织颁布的世界通用的质量管理标准。目前,国内一些高等学校开始按照ISO9000标准建立质量管理体系。电子科技大学中山学院在这种背景下,在全院范围内推行ISO9000质量管理体系。在这一过程中,产生了一些值得探讨的问题,出现了一些实际操作的难点,现提出来与大家共同探讨。     

建设节约型社会的理性思考

工业文明以来,石油危机、海啸等一系列生态危机就人类对资源的保护和利用问题敲响了警钟。为了实现人与自然的和谐、可持续发展,实现全面建设小康社会的目标,2004年初,我国政府正式提出建设节约型社会,使资源得到节约使用,环境得到保护,人民生活更加文明、健康、科学,经济与社会持续发展。建设节约型社会是可持续发展不可分割的部分,是构建和谐社会的重要保证,是中国现代化的根本出路,关系到中华民族的兴衰与长期发展,也关系到全人类的幸福与明天。本文主要研究节约型社会作为节约系统工程的评价及体系构建,以期更好地建设节约型社会。     

Love in Times of Cholera: Systemic Reflections on Supporting Families Through the Journey(s) of Illness

This paper is the result of our increasing interest in the experience of illness in families and the concomitant reflections on how best to therapeutically support these families through this process. This interest led us to reflect on the nuanced way in which language establishes a play with the experience of illness, a play that can amplify or reduce its effects. Such an interplay in turn led us to consider the valuable role that family therapists have in helping families and treating practitioners to create a safe space for conversation about illness. Further questions are also explored in relation to whether there is a role for family therapists in facilitating the interface between our clinical practice with clients and the wider treating medical community. And, if so, what shape would such an interface take? Considerations at this level would include the anticipation of psychological reactions to diagnosis of chronic and life‐threatening illnesses, in particular the importance of ‘normalisation’ of the psychological reactions to such chronic and/or life threatening diagnoses; the complex dynamics emerging from the interface between the effects of illness in the subjectivity of the ill person and the grief experienced by the other family members; different family members’ narratives of the illness; relevant community contexts; and, lastly, ways to help the family members and/or the ill person navigate the medical system including the use of second opinions, cyberspace information, and other systems in their ecology, such as the spiritual dimension. Some aspects of children's narratives of illness are also identified. The paper has been organised around the dialogue that the authors had around one of their clinical cases.     

Automating argument construction

Over the past five years the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI has been developing a new technology to address the problem of automated information management within real- world contexts. The result of this work is a body of techniques for automated reasoning from evidence that we call evidential reasoning. The techniques are based upon the mathematics of belief functions developed by Dempster and Shafer and have been successfully applied to a variety of problems including computer vision, multisensor integration, and intelligence analysis.

We have developed both a formal basis and a framework for implementating automated reasoning systems based upon these techniques. Both the formal and practical approach can be divided into four parts: (1) specifying a set of distinct propositional spaces, (2) specifying the interrelationships among these spaces, (3) representing bodies of evidence as belief distributions, and (4) establishing paths of the bodies for evidence to move through these spaces by means of evidential operations, eventually converging on spaces where the target questions can be answered. These steps specify a means for arguing from multiple bodies of evidence toward a particular (probabilistic) conclusion. Argument construction is the process by which such evidential analyses are constructed and is the analogue of constructing proof trees in a logical context.

This technology features the ability to reason from uncertain, incomplete, and occasionally inaccurate information based upon seven evidential operations: fusion, discounting, translation, projection, summarization, interpretation, and gisting. These operation are theoretically sound but have intuitive appeal as well.

In implementing this formal approach, we have found that evidential arguments can be represented as graphs. To support the construction, modification, and interrogation of evidential arguments, we have developed Gister. Gister provides an interactive, menu-driven, graphical interface that allows these graphical structures to be easily manipulated.

Our goal is to provide effective automated aids to domain experts for argument construction. Gister represents our first attempt at such an aid.     

A Social Network Comparison of Low‐Income Black and White Newlywed Couples

Relative to White families, Black families have been described as relying on extended social networks to compensate for other social and economic disadvantages. The presence or absence of supportive social networks should be especially relevant to young couples entering marriage, but to date there has been little effort to describe the social networks of comparable Black and White newlyweds. The current study addressed this gap by drawing on interviews with 57 first‐married newlyweds from low‐income communities to compare the composition and structure of Black and White couples' duocentric social networks. The results indicated that low‐income Black couples entered marriage at a social disadvantage relative to White couples, with more family relationships but fewer positive relationships and fewer sources of emotional support (for wives), fewer connections to married individuals, and fewer shared relationships between spouses. Black couples' relative social disadvantages persisted even when various economic and demographic variables were controlled.