Letter to the Editor: Respecting the Plurality of Value and the Messiness of Scientific Practice

Evaluations of authorship and recommendations for authorship policies best heed the plurality of valuation cultures that traverse scientific practices and respect the messiness of scientific practices, for those are reflected in authorship and authorship sequence decisions.     

Communication and information exchange among SMEs and their local environment

Abstract

In this article the results from a Swedish pilot study in the project Arena for Sustainable Innovative Development of small and medium-sized enterprises is presented. The project in a whole aims to create and test a model for collaboration and sustainable development among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in local areas. The research question in this article is delimited to issues concerning use of ICT, information exchange and communication among the interested parties. The pilot study was accomplished in a qualitative and explorative way with semi-structured interviews. As a result of the study some questions are identified as urgent to further investigate.     

How Japanese Families Cope with Fragile Elderly

Coping with caring for ill, fragile elderly is taxing the families in Japan, where longevity statistics predict early in the twenty-first century it will have the highest percentage of aged in the world. Interviews with 20 families revealed that although the culture mandates families care for their elderly, many are having considerable ambivalence and conflict, and caretakers suffer in the process unless they have assumed the defense of a martyr stance. Most do not seek nursing homes but are turning to government for supportive services. The trend in Japan, in spite of tradition, is for adult children to delay taking parents into their homes until they are unable to care for themselves.     

Collaborative Data-Mining in an Adolescent Mental Health Service

Summary

As full participants in a collaborative clinical data-mining project intended to promote staff reflection and to improve services, clinicians discovered just how valuable their practice expertise was in maintaining project relevance. In this paper, they describe challenges they faced as non-experienced researchers and writers and how their practice skills enabled them to overcome these challenges. Benefits derived include: enhanced skills (in both practice and research), sensitization to previously overlooked areas of practice, and an increased sense of professionalism.     

大数据对中国电子政务发展的影响及应用

大数据技术作为电子政务发展的推进器,不仅给技术进步带来深刻变革,而且给政府协同和公共服务模式带来了创新性发展。大数据作为“未来的石油”,已经成为一种重要的国家战略资源,正引领着新一轮科技创新,对中国电子政务可持续快速发展具有重要影响和推动作用。利用大数据来加强顶层设计、创新体制机制、整合信息资源、分析处理数据、促进政务协同、提供决策管理、提升公共服务和确保信息安全等方面已经得到重视和应用。“用数据说话、用数据决策、用数据管理、用数据创新”已经成为提升政府治理能力的新途径。     

Strengths-Based Approach and Coping Strategies used by Parents Whose Young Children Exhibit Violent Behaviour: Collaboration Between Schools and Parents

This research study explores the strategies adopted by 60 parents of children between 3 and 9 years of age considered to have engaged in violent behaviour, within the meaning of the Safe Schools Act (Ontario Ministry of Education, Canada, 2000). This legal framework requires parents to be involved in the decisions concerning their children. Parents’ perceptions of their involvement lead them to develop coping strategies enabling them to play a more active role in such decision making. This article analyzes their perceptions according to a strengths-based approach and seeks to provide a mediation perspective to social work practice with families.

Clarifying the role of belief-motive explanations in multi-stakeholder realist evaluation

In realist evaluation, where researchers aim to make program theories explicit, they can encounter competing explanations as to how programs work. Managing explanatory tensions from different sources of evidence in multi-stakeholder projects can challenge external evaluators, especially when access to pertinent data, like client records, is mediated by program stakeholders. In this article, we consider two central questions: how can program stakeholder motives shape a realist evaluation project; and how might realist evaluators respond to stakeholders’ belief-motive explanations, including those about program effectiveness, based on factors such as supererogatory commitment or trying together in good faith? Drawing on our realist evaluation of a service reform initiative involving multiple agencies, we describe stakeholder motives at key phases, highlighting a need for tactics and skills that help to manage explanatory tensions. In conclusion, the relevance of stakeholders’ belief-motive explanations (‘we believe the program works’) in realist evaluation is clarified and discussed.     

Megachurch involvement at the local level: Examining conditions for church action in economic development

The roles of small congregations and their social impacts are well known, but few theoretical studies investigate megachurch congregations. These mammoth organizations have the potential for advancing social good, but minimal research specifically focuses on the activities of these congregations in economic development (ED). This study addresses this dearth of information by answering the following research questions: (a) In what ways are megachurches involved in ED activities? (b) Who benefits from these programs and how are the programs offered? and (c) What factors influence megachurches to offer ED activities? We frame our investigation using both demand‐ and supply‐side arguments from Frumkin's (2002) model of nonprofit and voluntary action. Online survey data and follow‐up interviews with 42 megachurch leaders in the Dallas/Fort Worth and greater Houston areas show that megachurches are implementing ED activities in alignment with demand‐side explanations, especially when advancing opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed. However, supply‐side arguments provide more explanatory power, indicating that volunteer engagement with ED activities plays a significant role in the provision of ED services through megachurches. Our study offers a better understanding of why megachurches carry out ED activities with considerable attention devoted to how megachurches partner with other congregations, nonprofits, and government entities to encourage economic growth and improve the economic well‐being of community members.     

省域经济洼地区域中心城市发展战略研究——以江苏淮安为例

省域经济洼地地区是实现区域协调发展的重要板块和关键区域。以江苏省淮安市为例,从战略角度审视淮安建设成为苏北重要中心城市的意义和基础,并提出淮安在区域经济和流域经济层面上两个维度的发展定位和三个方向的发展路径。通过纵向融入京沪高铁和京杭运河两条复合发展轴,横向建设淮河流域生态经济带,打造苏皖在江北地区的跨界合作示范区等战略,推动淮安苏北重要中心城市的建设和省域经济协调发展格局的形成。     

技术载动社会：中国互联网接入二十年

人类社会创造了科学技术,科学技术又反过来造福于人类社会,技术与社会总是在相互作用中彼此推进的.互联网不同于以往人类历史上的任何一项技术创新,它对人类社会和生活所产生影响的深度和广度,都是前所未有的.互联网接入中国二十年的历史启示在于,其开放与协作的技术逻辑不仅始终引领互联网自身的发展,更是越来越深刻地影响并改变着我们社会的现在及未来.