Social Work, Sectarianism and Anti-sectarian Practice in Northern Ireland

Correspondence to Dr Jim Campbell, Department of Social Work, The Queen's University of Belfast, 7 Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, Northern Ireland. Jim Campbell lectures in the Department of Social Work, The Queen's University of Belfast. His doctoral thesis was on the concept of violence in social and political thought. His current research interests include social policy in Northern Ireland and mental health social work Summary This paper addresses a subject relatively unknown to the Britishand international social work audience—that of trainingfor anti-sectarian practice. In doing so, it points to someof the complex, even dangerous issues raised by such trainingfor social work students and practitioners in Northern Ireland.The paper comments upon the limited but significant ways inwhich social work educators and practitioners have tried tochallenge sectarian discrimination in Northern Ireland, andproposes methods in train ing and research which might facilitatea better understanding of these processes.     

ELASTIC CAPITAL SUPPLY AND THE EFFECTS OF FISCAL POLICY

Existing analyses of the effects of fiscal policy in general equilibrium models have typically been conducted under the assumption that the long-run supply of capital is perfectly elastic at a fixed rate of time preference. These analyses have shown that the long-run response of the capital stock to changes in fiscal policy is crucial to generating the potential for “multiplier” effects in these models. In this paper we ask, what are the implications of relaxing the assumption of perfectly elastic capital supply for the analysis of fiscal policy? We show that with less than perfectly elastic capital supply, the potential for multipliers is actually enhanced. (JEL E62, D90)     

构建农村社会保障三项奠基性制度

社会主义市场经济的建立需要健全的社会保障体制作保证,如果占总人口大多数的农村居民得不到保障,中国的社会保障制度就很难称得上完善。在本文中笔者着重探讨了农村最低生活保障制度、农村合作医疗制度以及农村居民养老保障制度,通过对这三项制度的构建基本就构建了中国农村社会保障制度的基础。     

GLOBAL JOB SHOP SCHEDULING WITH A GENETIC ALGORITHM

This paper describes a global job shop scheduling procedure that uses a genetic algorithm to find a good schedule. Unlike previously considered algorithms, this procedure has been implemented in the scheduling system for a manufacturing facility and has led to improved scheduling. This facility is a semiconductor test area. The test area is a job shop and has sequence-dependent setup times at some operations. The concern of management is to meet their customer due dates and to increase throughput. This requires the coordination of many resources, a task beyond the ability of simple dispatching rules. We discuss a centralized procedure that can find a good schedule through the use of a detailed scheduling model and a genetic algorithm that searches over combinations of dispatching rules. We discuss our effort in developing a system that models the shop, creates schedules for the test area personnel, and makes a number of contributions to test area management.     

A reactive approach to material procurement in an SME

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a more reactive approach to material procurement in a small manufacturing enterprise (SME). The approach involves a hybrid top-down and bottom-up approach to the issue of material procurement. The implementation of the approach in the test site is discussed and we show how the company can benefit from its implementation. The approach requires that there is a good interaction and transfer of information between an SME and both its customers and suppliers. The approach also requires a manufacturing firm to have control of the shopfloor and to have access to relevant and accurate information from the shopfloor. This hybrid approach to material procurement coupled with improved production activity control has helped a local manufacturing company to increase its reactivity. A decision support software tool is available which supports this approach and is described in the paper.     

SOGS and DSM-IV in the British Gambling Prevalence Survey: Reliability and Factor Structure

This article examines the psychometric performance and reliability of two problem gambling scales (the South Oaks Gambling Screen [SOGS], and a scale based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (4th edn) [DSM-IV]) and their constituent items, based upon data from the first British Gambling Prevalence Survey (Sproston et al ., 2000). Separate factor analyses of SOGS items and DSM-IV items suggested the existence of two independent factors in each case: dependence and gambling-related problems. Scores based upon SOGS and DSM factors correlated only moderately. It is concluded that no single existing screening questionnaire adequately reflects the multi-dimensional nature of problem gambling.     

Sophistication and the Antecedents of Whites' Racial Policy Attitudes: Racism, Ideology, and Affirmative Action in America

A number of researchers have argued that the effects of prejudiceon the racial policy attitudes and general political beliefsof white Americans may be restricted to the poorly educatedand politically unsophisticated. In contrast, rather than beingmotivated by prejudice, the racial policy attitudes and ideologicalvalues of the politically sophisticated white Americans shouldbe more firmly informed and motivated by the tolerant valuesat the heart of American political culture. These values includesuch things as individualism, notions of fair play, and devotionto the principle of equality of opportunity. We tested thishypothesis using white respondents from the 1986 and 1992 NationalElection Studies. Our evidence generally indicated that racialpolicy attitudes and political ideology were more powerfullyassociated with ideologies of racial dominance and superiorityamong politically sophisticated white Americans than among politicalunsophisticated white Americans. Moreover, even among the sophisticated,we found that various forms of egalitarianism predicted supportfor—affirmative action and that support for equal opportunityis not uniformly distributed across the political spectrum.