Can Carbon Nanomaterials Improve CZTS Photovoltaic Devices? Evaluation of Performance and Impacts Using Integrated Life‐Cycle Assessment and Decision Analysis

In emergent photovoltaics, nanoscale materials hold promise for optimizing device characteristics; however, the related impacts remain uncertain, resulting in challenges to decisions on strategic investment in technology innovation. We integrate multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and life‐cycle assessment (LCA) results (LCA‐MCDA) as a method of incorporating values of a hypothetical federal acquisition manager into the assessment of risks and benefits of emerging photovoltaic materials. Specifically, we compare adoption of copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) devices with molybdenum back contacts to alternative devices employing graphite or graphene instead of molybdenum. LCA impact results are interpreted alongside benefits of substitution including cost reductions and performance improvements through application of multi‐attribute utility theory. To assess the role of uncertainty we apply Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analysis. We find that graphene or graphite back contacts outperform molybdenum under most scenarios and assumptions. The use of decision analysis clarifies potential advantages of adopting graphite as a back contact while emphasizing the importance of mitigating conventional impacts of graphene production processes if graphene is used in emerging CZTS devices. Our research further demonstrates that a combination of LCA and MCDA increases the usability of LCA in assessing product sustainability. In particular, this approach identifies the most influential assumptions and data gaps in the analysis and the areas in which either engineering controls or further data collection may be necessary.     

Campylobacter QMRA: A Bayesian Estimation of Prevalence and Concentration in Retail Foods Under Clustering and Heavy Censoring

A Bayesian statistical temporal‐prevalence‐concentration model (TPCM) was built to assess the prevalence and concentration of pathogenic campylobacter species in batches of fresh chicken and turkey meat at retail. The data set was collected from Finnish grocery stores in all the seasons of the year. Observations at low concentration levels are often censored due to the limit of determination of the microbiological methods. This model utilized the potential of Bayesian methods to borrow strength from related samples in order to perform under heavy censoring. In this extreme case the majority of the observed batch‐specific concentrations was below the limit of determination. The hierarchical structure was included in the model in order to take into account the within‐batch and between‐batch variability, which may have a significant impact on the sample outcome depending on the sampling plan. Temporal changes in the prevalence of campylobacter were modeled using a Markovian time series. The proposed model is adaptable for other pathogens if the same type of data set is available. The computation of the model was performed using OpenBUGS software.     

Making the Technological Transition – Citizens' Encounters with Digital Pension Services

We examine in this article the impact of digitization on the provision of public services by studying how citizens experience the use of web portals in their pension planning. Based on focus groups and user test material, we elucidate five critical phases that each operate as an obstacle for citizens' further engagement in the digital self‐service process: interest, access, comprehension, reflection and support. We argue that these phases and the obstacles they entail illustrate a transition away from a situation in which control and agency over the quality of public services is embedded in a dyadic relationship between citizens and frontline personnel, and to a situation characterized by more complex relations between citizens, the front line, and the digital infrastructure. We argue that this transition implies that citizens are required to possess a new type of competence that contains both financial and digital skills. Citizens who are unable to develop or acquire such competence are likely to be disadvantaged by the services. Lastly, we argue that these developments pose significant challenges for public administrations to ensure the overall quality of the public services.     

Optimizing the “demographic dividend” in young developing countries: The role of contractual savings and insurance for financing education

Many developing regions are facing a youth bulge, meaning that young people comprise the highest proportion of the population. These regions are at risk of losing what could be a tremendous opportunity for economic growth and development if they do not capitalize on this young and economically productive population, also referred to as the “demographic dividend,” defined as the increase in economic growth that tends to follow increases in the ratio of the working‐age population – essentially the labor force – to dependents. Nations undergoing this population transition have the opportunity to capitalize on the demographic dividend if the right social, economic, and human capital policies are in place. In particular, Sub‐Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa are at risk of losing the demographic dividend. These regions face high youth unemployment, low primary school completion, and low secondary school enrollment. This results in an undereducated and unskilled segment of the population. The prohibitive costs of education prevent young people from finishing school, thereby entering the labor market unprepared. This article presents a case for youth‐focused financial inclusion programs as one of the antidotes to the masses of poor, undereducated, and low‐skilled young people swelling the labor markets of poor developing countries.     

Gaining knowledge about parental mental illness: how does it empower children?

This study examined the utility of a digital video disc (DVD) intervention, designed to educate children, whose parents have depression and/or anxiety. Twenty‐nine children completed pre‐ and post‐DVD exposure questionnaires, on mental health knowledge and help seeking, and 18 were interviewed about their experiences and use of the DVD. Post‐DVD, children's knowledge of mental illness improved. The DVD also challenged mental illness misconceptions. Most children preferred watching the DVD with a parent. The study explains how children utilize information about mental illness.     

Social work and the shadow father: lessons for engaging fathers in Northern Ireland

The legislative framework of social work practice has consistently highlighted the need to work in partnership with parents, with far‐reaching implications for families. However, the importance of engaging fathers in social work practice is an issue that has received limited attention within academic debate and research. A research study undertaken across six family centres, investigated paternal involvement in family centre social work in Northern Ireland. The study involved 46 semi‐structured interviews with social workers, fathers and mothers. This paper presents the views of 22 social workers on the barriers to paternal involvement in family centre interventions. A range of factors were identified which served to inhibit or promote engagement of fathers. There were substantially more deterrents than promoters, a clear indicator of the problematic nature of paternal involvement. The findings highlight that both attitudes and practices of social workers influence the engagement of fathers. Recommendations drawn from the findings are presented for the development of father – inclusive social work practices and research.     

Social inclusion,exclusion, and well‐being in Australia: meaning and measurement

This paper begins by examining the social inclusion agenda that formed the centrepiece of the social policy agenda of the Australian Government between 2007 and 2013. It discusses several features of the agenda, including its objectives (as articulated by the government) and some of the administrative and bureaucratic mechanisms that were put in place to assist with its development and implementation. Although no formal assessment of the impact of the agenda is attempted, some of the ways in which such an agenda could make a difference are identified. The paper then summarises the social inclusion indicator framework developed by the Australian Social Inclusion Unit with assistance and advice from the Australian Social Inclusion Board, and compares its structure and content with the frameworks developed by two of Australia's leading social research institutes. Finally, data from two national surveys of poverty and social exclusion are used to examine recent changes in social exclusion and the association between the severity of exclusion and levels of subjective well‐being. These latter results show clearly that subjective well‐being is consistently lower among those who experience the greatest degree of social exclusion, suggesting that exclusion as identified and measured reflects external constraints rather than internal preferences.     

Toward Defining the Causal Role of Consciousness: Using Models of Memory and Moral Judgment from Cognitive Neuroscience to Expand the Sociological Dual‐Process Model

What role does “discursive consciousness” play in decision‐making? How does it interact with “practical consciousness?” These two questions constitute two important gaps in strong practice theory that extend from Pierre Bourdieu's habitus to Stephen Vaisey's sociological dual‐process model and beyond. The goal of this paper is to provide an empirical framework that expands the sociological dual‐process model in order to fill these gaps using models from cognitive neuroscience. In particular, I use models of memory and moral judgment that highlight the importance of executive functions and semantic memory. I outline each model as it pertains to the aforementioned gaps in strong practice theory. I then use the models from cognitive neuroscience to create an expanded dual‐process model that addresses how and when conscious mental systems override and interact with subconscious mental systems in the use of cultural ends for decision‐making. Finally, using this expanded model I address the sociological debate over the use of interview and survey data. My analysis reveals that surveys and interviews both elicit information encoded in declarative memory and differ primarily in the process of information retrieval that is required of respondents.     

Culture‐Inclusive Theories of Self and Social Interaction: The Approach of Multiple Philosophical Paradigms

In view of the fact that culture‐inclusive psychology has been eluded or relatively ignored by mainstream psychology, the movement of indigenous psychology is destined to develop a new model of man that incorporates both causal psychology and intentional psychology as suggested by Vygotsky (1927). Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” (Shweder et al., 1998), the Mandala Model of Self (Hwang, 2011a,b) and Face and Favor Model (Hwang, 1987, 2012) were constructed to represent the universal mechanisms of self and social interaction that can be applied to any culture; both models can be used as conceptual frameworks for analyzing mentalities of people in any given culture. Taking research works from Foundations of Chinese Psychology: Confucian Social Relation as exemplars (Hwang, 2012), this article illustrates how to construct culture‐inclusive theories of Confucianism by multiple philosophical paradigms. The mechanism of culture‐inclusive theory can be applied to explain qualitative research findings on lifeworld events of people in a particular society. It can also be utilized to predict results of quantitative research conducted to verify theoretical propositions in the scientific microworld by empirical methods.     

Garbage‐can Policy‐making Meets Neo‐liberal Ideology: Twenty Five Years of Redundant Reform of the English National Health Service

The garbage‐can theory of decision‐making (Cohen et al. 1972), has been adapted into a perspective on policy‐making, with adaptations of the approach placing notable emphasis upon the health sector (Kingdon 2006; Paton 2006). This article creates an adapted ‘garbage‐can’ framework to help explain each stage of the reform of the English National Health Service (NHS) over the last 25 years. The emergence of the key idea and resultant policy at each stage of reform of the English NHS has been arational and indeed sometimes irrational. Policy has reflected advocacy by policy‐salesmen (Kingdon 2002), proffering ‘solutions’ to ill‐defined problems and answers to unasked questions, and politicians' short‐termist responses at each decision‐point. Yet the garbage‐can alone is not enough: if arationality rules in policy‐making day to day, this does not mean that there is not an overall ideological context, trend or bias in reform. The article also posits that ‘market reform’ has derived from the ideological hegemony of a naive anti‐statism (hostility to a misleadingly defined and often mythological ‘centralist state’) in public services and enthusiasm for market competition rather than any evidence‐based application of pro‐market ideas to health policy. A question arises: how are these two approaches (short‐term arationality and longer‐term ideological bias) combined in explanation of how policy over time is biased in a particular direction while seemingly arbitrary and directionless at each messy decision‐point. The article attempts to combine the insights of a garbage‐can approach with wider explanations of ideological hegemony.