Family Therapy for Kids Without Families: Working Systemically With Children and Young People in Residential Care

A significant proportion (4%, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2008) of children and young people in Australia live in some form of residential care, usually in small group‐homes staffed by residential care workers in shifts. However, as Hawkins‐Rodgers (2007) points out, these placements are often not resourced to heal the effects of trauma and multiple attachment disruptions in their residents. The lack of an archetypal ‘family’ has led in the past to family therapists considering that there is little work to be done with such clients. This leaves such placements to be supported most frequently by clinicians who specialise in behaviour management and other linearly founded models of practice. The Alternate Care Clinic (ACC) is the first mental health service in New South Wales dedicated entirely to children and young people in out of home care with a high level of complex needs. This article examines the systemic therapeutic model the clinic has developed in the last two years. In particular, the article seeks to explore the importance of ‘meaning making’ in a diffuse parental system, particularly with regards to the term ‘family’. The complexities of working in this area and possible ways forward are illustrated with a closely worked case study.     

论电子商务法基本原则

电子商务法学界对电子商务法基本原则的认识仍存在种种分歧和不足.技术中立原则只是民法平等原则的细化,不能成为电子商务法基本原则.在梳理国内现有理论研究并汲取合理成分的基础上,以法律基本原则的原理为基础,从电子商务法解决的核心问题是在非面对面交易环境中,如何确保当事人能够获得商品和价款出发,提出电子商务法基本原则是安全原则.功能等同是判定利用新型信息技术所实施的法律行为有效与否的标准,是安全原则的重要外延和具体化.安全原则要求第三方电子商务平台针对平台内发生的第三方侵权行为负有合理的注意义务.在安全原则指引下,技术中立非绝对,应包含国家安全等例外规则.     

An Adaptive Functional Autoregressive Forecast Model to Predict Electricity Price Curves

We propose an adaptive functional autoregressive (AFAR) forecast model to predict electricity price curves. With time-varying operators, the AFAR model can be safely used in both stationary and nonstationary situations. A closed-form maximum likelihood (ML) estimator is derived under stationarity. The result is further extended for nonstationarity, where the time-dependent operators are adaptively estimated under local homogeneity. We provide theoretical results of the ML estimator and the adaptive estimator. Simulation study illustrates nice finite sample performance of the AFAR modeling. The AFAR model also exhibits a superior accuracy in the forecast exercise of the California electricity daily price curves compared to several alternatives.     

Uniform in bandwidth consistency for various kernel estimators involving functional data

The paper investigates various nonparametric models including regression, conditional distribution, conditional density and conditional hazard function, when the covariates are infinite dimensional. The main contribution is to prove uniform in bandwidth asymptotic results for kernel estimators of these functional operators. Then, the application issues, involving data-driven bandwidth selection, are discussed.     

Functional analysis of high-content high-throughput imaging data

High-content automated imaging platforms allow the multiplexing of several targets simultaneously to generate multi-parametric single-cell data sets over extended periods of time. Typically, standard simple measures such as mean value of all cells at every time point are calculated to summarize the temporal process, resulting in loss of time dynamics of the single cells. Multiple experiments are performed but observation time points are not necessarily identical, leading to difficulties when integrating summary measures from different experiments. We used functional data analysis to analyze continuous curve data, where the temporal process of a response variable for each single cell can be described using a smooth curve. This allows analyses to be performed on continuous functions, rather than on original discrete data points. Functional regression models were applied to determine common temporal characteristics of a set of single cell curves and random effects were employed in the models to explain variation between experiments. The aim of the multiplexing approach is to simultaneously analyze the effect of a large number of compounds in comparison to control to discriminate between their mode of action. Functional principal component analysis based on T-statistic curves for pairwise comparison to control was used to study time-dependent compound effects.     

M-estimation for functional linear regression

This paper studies M-estimation in functional linear regression in which the dependent variable is scalar while the covariate is a function. An estimator for the slope function is obtained based on the functional principal component basis. The global convergence rate of the M-estimator of unknown slope function is established. The convergence rate of the mean-squared prediction error for the proposed estimators is also established. Monte Carlo simulation studies are conducted to examine the finite-sample performance of the proposed procedure. Finally, the proposed method is applied to analyze the Berkeley growth data.     

Mitigating the Impact of Functional Dominance in Cross‐Functional Process Improvement Teams

Manufacturing process improvement teams often draw upon cross‐functional expertise. However, teams dominated by a single or few functions often do not achieve the desired interdisciplinary learning and cooperation, which in turn could negatively affect the performance of that cross‐functional team. Through an empirical analysis of 149 manufacturing process improvement teams in six SIC industrial categories, we show that even after controlling for several factors such as team size, number of functions, gender diversity, ethnicity, number of management levels, and geographic dispersion of team members, psychological safety of work environment fully mediates the relationship between functional dominance and team performance. We also confirm that a team leader possessing high interpersonal justice mitigates the deficiency of dominated teams and improves team performance by fostering a psychologically safe work environment. Our recommendation therefore is that when a dominated team is unavoidable due to the needed skill sets or other organizational considerations, to ensure success it is imperative that the firm chooses a team leader who can promote psychological safety by being just, and who can effectively encourage input from all functional team members and give them objective feedback.     

Emotions in the Practice of Systemic Therapy

Emotions are connected to meaning making in human interactions. This can be seen not just in terms of the immediate participants and their developmental history but also through broader cultural, social, and gender lenses. In times of relational tension, which require system flexibility, some emotional interaction can constrain alternative actions or meanings being constructed. Therapists can hypothesize about these emotional dances (including those that are taking place in the therapist/client system) and such hypotheses can inform interventions aimed at generating different emotional sequences. If participants in therapy experience alternative emotional responses as a result of therapeutic intervention, then change can occur (e.g., a greater sense of agency or hope, or a different perception of the situation).     

意识提升与语法能力的发展

布鲁纳认为学生不是被动的知识接受者,而是积极的信息加工者。他的知觉、归类理论引出了认知学习观——超越所给的信息。拟从语法教学角度出发,对布鲁纳的认知结构学习理论加以运用,提出:语法意识提升的意义在于帮助学生利用认知能力,超越所给的语法规则和实例,构建自身的语法能力,从而促进语言交际能力。     

Responding to the call: a conceptual model for kinship care assessment

Kinship care has become an important care option worldwide. However, in many jurisdictions, child welfare services use traditional foster care assessment systems. The assessment of the kinship home poses particular challenges. The initial assessment of the kinship home, enabling emergency placements, provides a child‐centred perspective. However, agencies frequently fail to meet the designated time frame for completion of the assessment/approval process. Such failures require the development of different conceptual models for kinship care service delivery, especially for assessments. This paper builds on earlier work on assessment models, drawing on the international literature and the author's involvement and research on kinship care in Ireland. The usability of the proposed model needs to be evaluated across different legislative, policy and practice contexts internationally.