Threshold decisions: how social workers prioritize referrals of child concern

This paper examines local authority social workers' decision‐making when considering referrals of children, where the concerns are on the margin of child protection procedures. In doing so, it describes the findings of a qualitative research study undertaken in the policy context of attempts to ‘refocus’ social work practice in the late 1990s and early twenty‐first century. Data collection involved interviews with social workers and parents in 23 cases. Conclusions are that referrals were evaluated on the basis of five key factors, specificity, severity, risk, parental accountability and corroboration, the use of which determined whether an initial assessment or an investigation of alleged abuse took place. The analysis builds on previous work in the child protection field, but demonstrates how the application of these factors differs between cases of child concern and cases of child protection. Policy implications concern the complexity of decision‐making in the uncertain context of limited referral information and it is proposed that the simplistic notion of a continuum of abuse is now outdated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Migration decision-making and migration industry in the Indonesia–Malaysia corridor

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the involvement of migration industry (MI) in the migration system of Indonesia and Malaysia. The two countries share an extensive border and have much in common in culture and history but they are very different in geographical size, population and economic development, the latter being a main cause for labour migration from Indonesia to Malaysia. The changing context of government policies generates new niches for migration services taken up by formal and informal intermediaries, thereby confronting migrants with a varied migration-decision field and thresholds during their migration process. Much of the migration is legal, but a large part of it also takes place outside the control of the national governments. While taking mental processes in migration decision-making as starting point, we analyse how the MI, by way of fostering, facilitating and controlling geographic mobility and localised employment, connects to the production and negotiating of three migration decision thresholds faced by migrants.     

Effects of the Mechanism of Receptor-Mediated Gene Expression on the Shape of the Dose-Response Curve

A mathematical model of receptor-mediated gene expression that includes receptor binding of natural and xenobiotic ligands, protein synthesis and degradation, and metabolism of the xenobiotic ligand was created to identify the determinants of the shape of the dose-response profile. Values of the model's parameters were varied to reflect alternative mechanisms of expression of the protein. These assumptions had dramatic effects on the computed response to a bolus dose of the xenobiotic ligand. If all processes in the model exhibit hyperbolic kinetics, the dose-response curves can appear sigmoidal but actually be linear with a positive slope at low doses. The slope of the curve only approached zero at low dose, indicative of a threshold for response, if binding of the xenobiotic ligand to the receptor exhibited positive cooperativity (ligand binding at one site increases the affinity for ligand at another binding site on the receptor). Positive cooperativity in the rate-limiting step of protein synthesis produced dose-response curves which were "U-shaped" at low doses, also indicative of a threshold. Positive cooperativity in the metabolism of the xenobiotic ligand produced dose-response curves that increased more rapidly than linearly with increasing dose. The model illustrates the fact that response cannot be predicted from qualitative mechanistic arguments alone; any assessment of risk to health from xenobiotic chemicals must be based on a detailed quantitative examination of the kinetic behavior of each chemical species individually.     

Protecting children in Scotland: examining the impact of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995

This paper discusses findings from a small‐scale study of the impact on child protection practice following implementation of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. The Act introduced three new measures to allow the state to intervene in families to protect a child where there is a risk of significant harm. These include the child protection order, the child assessment order and the exclusion order. The child protection order provides for the removal of a child to (or his or her retention in) a place of safety. In the first two years of the operation of the 1995 Act fewer applications were made for this order compared with similar provisions under the previous legislation. This reduction in applications appears to be related to unfamiliarity with new legislation; greater scrutiny resulting from the more formal application to the sheriff court; and the introduction of a new legal criterion for intervention, the presence or likelihood of ‘significant harm’. The introduction of the ‘no order’ principle into Scottish child care law is also likely to be a factor.     

A boosting inspired personalized threshold method for sepsis screening

Sepsis is one of the biggest risks to patient safety, with a natural mortality rate between 25% and 50%. It is difficult to diagnose, and no validated standard for diagnosis currently exists. A commonly used scoring criteria is the quick sequential organ failure assessment (qSOFA). It demonstrates very low specificity in ICU populations, however. We develop a method to personalize thresholds in qSOFA that incorporates easily to measure patient baseline characteristics. We compare the personalized threshold method to qSOFA, five previously published methods that obtain an optimal constant threshold for a single biomarker, and to the machine learning algorithms based on logistic regression and AdaBoosting using patient data in the MIMIC-III database. The personalized threshold method achieves higher accuracy than qSOFA and the five published methods and has comparable performance to machine learning methods. Personalized thresholds, however, are much easier to adopt in real-life monitoring than machine learning methods as they are computed once for a patient and used in the same way as qSOFA, whereas the machine learning methods are hard to implement and interpret.     

Does foreign bank entry contribute to financial development? Examining the role of income thresholds

This article examines the relationship between foreign bank entry and financial development in a panel framework covering 57 emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) between 1995 and 2009. Using various measures of financial sector deepening, the article also explores the degree to which the relationship between foreign bank entry and financial sector depth varies by different income thresholds of the EMDEs. The empirical findings suggest that while foreign banks have a direct positive impact in furthering financial depth, the marginal effects of foreign bank entry diminish over time with greater levels of economic development. In other words, the impact of foreign bank entry tends to diminish as the per capita income of the country rises.     

多业务低轨道卫星通信系统的一种切换方案

提出了话音和数据综合业务LEO卫星通信系统的一种切换方案-动态信道抢占优先方案。该方案考虑了数据业务特性和话音切换业务的高优先级,并使用排队策略,为话音切换业务提供抢占优先权。该方案还采用了动态阈值的保护信道策略,保证了新呼叫和切换呼叫之间的优先级和公平性。通过计算机仿真,与无优先方案和传统保护信道方案进行比较,该方案使系统的服务等级和信道利用率性能得到了改善。     

To Pool or Not to Pool in Call Centers

Should service capacities (such as agent groups in call centers) be pooled or not? This paper will show that there is no single answer. For the simple but generic situation of two (strictly pooled or unpooled) server groups, it will provide (1) insights and approximate formulae, (2) numerical support, and (3) general conclusions for the waiting‐time effect of pooling. For a single call type, this effect is clearly positive, as represented by a pooling factor. With multiple job types, however, the effect is determined by both a pooling and a mix factor. Due to the mix factor, this effect might even be negative. In this case, it is also numerically illustrated that an improvement of both the unpooled and the strictly pooled scenario can be achieved by simple overflow or threshold scenarios. The results are of both practical and theoretical interest: practical for awareness of this negative effect, the numerical orders, and practical scenarios in call centers, and theoretical for further research in more complex situations.     

Dangerous Climate Change: The Role for Risk Research

The notion of "dangerous climate change" constitutes an important development of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It persists, however, as an ambiguous expression, sustained by multiple definitions of danger. It also implicitly contains the question of how to respond to the complex and multi-disciplinary risk issues that climate change poses. The invaluable role of the climate science community, which relies on risk assessments to characterize system uncertainties and to identify limits beyond which changes may become dangerous, is acknowledged. But this alone will not suffice to develop long-term policy. Decisions need to include other considerations, such as value judgments about potential risks, and societal and individual perceptions of "danger," which are often contested. This article explores links and cross-overs between the climate science and risk communication and perception approaches to defining danger. Drawing upon nine articles in this Special Issue of Risk Analysis, we examine a set of themes: limits of current scientific understanding; differentiated public perceptions of danger from climate change; social and cultural processes amplifying and attenuating perceptions of, and responses to, climate change; risk communication design; and new approaches to climate change decision making. The article reflects upon some of the difficulties inherent in responding to the issue in a coherent, interdisciplinary fashion, concluding nevertheless that action should be taken, while acknowledging the context-specificity of "danger." The need for new policy tools is emphasised, while research on nested solutions should be aimed at overcoming the disjunctures apparent in interpretations of climate change risks.