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Actual Practice (actual + practice)
Selected AbstractsDoctors, Borders, and Life in CrisisCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2005Peter Redfield The politics of life and death is explored from the perspective of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières [MSF]), an activist nongovernmental organization explicitly founded to respond to health crises on a global scale. Following the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, I underline key intersections between MSF's operations that express concern for human life in the midst of humanitarian disaster and the group's self-proclaimed ethic of engaged refusal. Adopting the analytic frame of biopolitics, I suggest that the actual practice of medical humanitarian organizations in crisis settings presents a fragmentary and uncertain form of such power, extended beyond stable sovereignty and deployed within a restricted temporal horizon. [source] Student Conflict Resolution, Power "Sharing" in Schools, and Citizenship EducationCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 2 2001Kathy Bickmore One goal of elementary education is to help children develop the skills, knowledge, and values associated with citizenship. However, there is little consensus about what these goals really mean: various schools, and various programs within any school, may promote different notions of "good citizenship." Peer conflict mediation, like service learning, creates active roles for young people to help them develop capacities for democratic citizenship (such as critical reasoning and shared decision making). This study examines the notions of citizenship embodied in the contrasting ways one peer mediation model was implemented in six different elementary schools in the same urban school district. This program was designed to foster leadership among diverse young people, to develop students' capacities to be responsible citizens by giving them tangible responsibility, specifically the power to initiate and carry out peer conflict management activities. In practice, as the programs developed, some schools did not share power with any of their student mediators, and other schools shared power only with the kinds of children already seen as "good" students. All of the programs emphasized the development of nonviolent community norms,a necessary but not sufficient condition for democracy. A few programs began to engage students in critical reasoning and/or in taking the initiative in influencing the management of problems at their schools, thus broadening the space for democratic learning. These case studies help to clarify what our visions of citizenship (education) may look and sound like in actual practice so that we can deliberate about the choices thus highlighted. [source] Rethinking the Emerging Post-Washington ConsensusDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2005Ziya Öni The objective of this article is to provide a critical assessment of the emerging Post-Washington Consensus (PWC), as the new influential vision in the development debate. The authors begin by tracing the main record of the Washington Consensus, the set of neoliberal economic policies propagated largely by key Bretton Woods institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, that penetrated into the economic policy agendas of many developing countries from the late 1970s onwards. They then outline the main tenets of the PWC, emerging from the shortcomings of that record and the reaction it created in the political realm. The authors accept that the PWC, in so far as it influences the actual practice of key Bretton Woods institutions, provides an improvement over the Washington Consensus. Yet, at the same time, they draw attention to the failure of the PWC, as reflected in current policy practice, to provide a sufficiently broad framework for dealing with key and pressing development issues such as income distribution, poverty and self-sustained growth. [source] Nuclear power plant communications in normative and actual practice: A field study of control room operators' communicationsHUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 1 2007Paulo V.R. Carvalho The safety and availability of sociotechnical critical systems still relies on human operators, both through human reliability and human ability to handle adequately unexpected events. In this article, the authors focus on ergonomic field studies of nuclear power plant control room operator activities, and more specifically on the analysis of communications within control room crews. They show how operators use vague and porous verbal exchanges to produce continuous, redundant, and diverse interactions to successfully construct and maintain individual and mutual awareness, which is paramount to achieve system stability and safety. Such continuous interactions enable the operators to prevent, detect, and reverse system errors or flaws by anticipation or regulation. This study helps in providing cues for the design of more workable systems for human cooperation in nuclear power plant operation. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 17: 43,78, 2007. [source] System design in normative and actual practice: A comparative study of cognitive task allocation in advanced manufacturing systemsHUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 2 2004Sotiris Papantonopoulos The Human Factors Engineering approach to human-machine system design is based largely on normative design methods. This article suggests that the scope of Human Factors Engineering shall be extended to the descriptive study of system design in actual practice by the application of theoretical frameworks that emphasize the role of the system-design practitioner and organization in the design process. A comparative study of system design in normative and actual practice was conducted in the design of cognitive task allocation in a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) cell. The study showed that the designers' allocation decisions were influenced strongly by factors related to their own design practices, yet exogenous to the tasks to be allocated. Theoretical frameworks from Design Research were applied to illustrate differences between normative and actual practice of system design. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 14: 181,196, 2004. [source] Incontinence: prevalence, management, staff knowledge and professional practice environment in rehabilitation unitsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OLDER PEOPLE NURSING, Issue 1 2009Geraldine McCarthy MSc Background., Bladder and bowel incontinence is a major health care problem, which adversely affects the lives of many individuals living at home or in health service facilities. Current approaches to continence care emphasize comfort, safety and reduction of risk, rather than detailed individualized assessment and management. The literature illustrates a gap between evidence and actual practice and emphasizes the context of care as being a key element for successful implementation of evidence based practice. Aims., To identify prevalence of bowel and bladder incontinence and its management, investigate continence knowledge and describe the professional practice environment within a rehabilitation unit for older people. Method., An integrated evaluation of continence prevalence, staff knowledge and the work environment was adopted. Results., Findings revealed a high incidence of incontinence (60% urinary, 3% faecal, 37% mixed) a lack of specific continence assessment and specific rationale for treatment decisions or continuation of care. The focus was on continence containment rather than on proactive management. Staff demonstrated a reasonable knowledge of incontinence causation and treatment as measured by the staff knowledge audit. The evaluation of the work environment indicated a low to moderate perception of control over practice (2.39), autonomy in practice (2.87), nurse doctor relationship (2.67) and organizational support (2.67). [source] A warm welcome for destination quality brands: the example of the Pays Cathare regionINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 4 2003Megan Woods Abstract In this paper, the salient complexities characterising quality management at the tourism destination are outlined, and in light of these, a number of quality principles are deemed particularly appropriate for the further investigation of destination quality management (DQM). The complexities include the significant number of services provided at the destination, the highly fragmented nature of the tourism destination product and the large number of small businesses that go to comprise this product. General principles are drawn from the SERVQUAL, Kano and EFQM Business Excellence models in order to provide a tentative framework for investigating how one destination has striven to overcome these challenges. The example of the Pays Cathare Region in southern France, which has been recognised by the European Commission as an example of best practice in integrated quality management (IQM), shows how these quality tenets can be translated from the theoretical framework into actual practice by means of its destination quality brand. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd. [source] Equilibrium theory analysis of dual reflux PSA for separation of a binary mixtureAICHE JOURNAL, Issue 10 2004Armin D. Ebner A dual reflux (DR) PSA cycle that combines the features of a conventional (stripping reflux) PSA cycle with those of a new enriching reflux PSA cycle is analyzed to show its potential for separating gas mixtures. On the basis of isothermal equilibrium theory applied to linear isotherms, the ultimate separation is carried out where the binary feed is separated into two pure components with 100% recovery of each component. This very idealized analysis reveals that such a separation is possible over a wide range of conditions, even with pressure ratios as low as 1.1. This analysis also reveals that low throughputs and high heavy component recycle ratios are inherently associated with DR PSA cycles, both of which may be detrimental to the process economics. High throughputs and low heavy product recycle ratios are indeed achievable, but only when using low pressure ratios and less selective adsorbents, both counterintuitive results that make sense when considering the perfect separation is always being achieved. Although these trends may not carry over to actual practice, because the model developed here is overly simplified and invalid under certain conditions, this analysis shows that it may indeed be entirely feasible to separate a binary gas mixture into two relatively pure components with very high recoveries using a DR PSA cycle operating with a very low pressure ratio and, hence, expenditure of energy. © 2004 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 50: 2418,2429, 2004 [source] Case study: a maintenance practice used with real-time telecommunications softwareJOURNAL OF SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AND EVOLUTION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, Issue 2 2001Miroslav Popovi Abstract In this paper we present a case study of the software maintenance practice that has been successfully applied to real-time distributed systems, which are installed and fully operational in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities across Russia. In this paper we concentrate on the software maintenance process, including customer request servicing, in-field error logging, role of information system, software deployment, and software quality policy, and especially the software quality prediction process. In this case study, the prediction process is shown to be integral and one of the most important parts of the software maintenance process. We include a software quality prediction procedure overview and an example of the actual practice. The quality of the new software update is predicted on the basis of the current update's quantity metrics data and quality data, and new update's quantity metrics data. For management, this forecast aids software maintenance efficiency, and cost reduction. For practitioners, the most useful result presented is the process for determining the value for the break point. We end this case study with five lessons learned. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] New product development for a food and beverage company: A showcase of evidence-based managementKNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT: THE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE TRANSFORMATION, Issue 2 2010Derek C. Man We develop a model of new product development which may inform decision-making on innovation and knowledge management in this paper. The new model combines extant theoretical framework and actual practice from a leading Food and Beverage chain in Hong Kong to illustrate how evidence-based management (EBM) can be practiced in new product development. Some salient features of the model include generating new ideas constantly, improving success rate of new ideas, and ensuring collaboration among internal functions. This paper showcases EBM by synthesizing theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom and bringing together academics and practitioners to better understand a new product development model that can be generalized to other companies and industries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Henri de Lubac: Reading Corpus Mysticum,NEW BLACKFRIARS, Issue 1029 2009Laurence Paul Hemming Henri de Lubac's Corpus Mysticum, published during and immediately after the conditions of wartime France, had a profound influence on the theology and actual practice of not only Catholic, but also much Protestant liturgy in the course of the unfolding liturgical movement. The interpretative keys of the text were established primarily by Michel de Certeau and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and have emphasised a historical shift from understanding in the connections between a threefold hermeneutic of Christ's ,mystical body'. The ,mystical body' is variously understood as the Eucharist itself, the extant body of the Church, and the actual body of Christ. The conventional reading of this text is to claim that de Lubac traces a shift, occurring in the High Middle Ages that points away from the body of the Church to an objectification of the eucharistic species, resulting in the highly individualistic piety that manifested itself in the Catholicism of the nineteenth century. This paper challenges that hermeneutic key as an oversimplification of a much more subtle reading suggested by de Lubac himself and intrinsic to the text of Corpus Mysticum, and suggests that de Lubac understood the real shift to be the triumph of a certain kind of rationalism, exemplified by Berengar's thought, emerging to assert itself as the basis and ground of theological thinking, eclipsing the grounding character of the liturgy as the source of meaning in theology. It examines de Lubac's late claim that Corpus Mysticum was ,a naïve text' and asks what kinds of naïvety are indicated in this statement. [source] Legitimate Authority and "Just War" in the Modern WorldPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 1 2002Laurie Calhoun Legitimate authority is a widely touted yet rarely analyzed concept in discourse about war. In this essay, I articulate and analyze the schema of just war theory that has dominated philosophical discourse regarding war since the early medieval period. Although the requirements for a "just war" appear to exceed the simple proclamation by a legitimate authority, in fact, all of the other requirements are subject to the interpretation of the legitimate authority. In other words, just war theory reduces, in actual practice, to the requirement of legitimate authority. A consideration of the nature of contemporary warfare further suggests that just war theory is the vestigial idiom of a world that no longer exists. What remains today of just war theory is a dangerous rhetorical weapon, deployed by the leaders of both sides in every belligerent conflict. [source] Barriers to the provision of evidence-based psychosocial care in oncologyPSYCHO-ONCOLOGY, Issue 10 2006Penelope Schofield Abstract Meeting the psychological, social and physical needs of people with cancer is a challenge for individual health practitioners, health administrators and health policy makers. However, there is a considerable gap between recommended best-evidence psychosocial and supportive care and actual practice. This paper provides a discussion of the reasons for this gap using the precede-proceed model as a theoretical framework. The model is a useful way of classifying potential barriers to the application of recommended best practice into three categories: predisposing factors which influence motivation to behave in a particular way, enabling factors which facilitate the enactment of the behaviour and reinforcing factors which increase the likelihood that the behaviour will be maintained over time. Ways of addressing these barriers are proposed and discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Keeping Public Officials Accountable through Dialogue: Resolving the Accountability ParadoxPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 6 2002Nancy C. Roberts How can public officials be held accountable, and yet avoid the paradoxes and pathologies of the current mechanisms of accountability? The answer, claims Harmon (1995), is dialogue. But what exactly is dialogue, and how is it created? More importantly, how can dialogue ensure accountability? To address these questions, I begin with a brief description of dialogue and its basic features, distinguishing it from other forms of communication. An example illustrates how dialogue occurs in actual practice. Not only does dialogue demonstrate the intelligent management of contradictory motives and forces, it also supports Harmon's claim that it can resolve the accountability paradox and avoid the atrophy of personal responsibility and political authority. I suggest that dialogue's advantage outweighs its cost as a mechanism of accountability under a particular set of conditions: when public officials confront "wicked problems" that defy definition and solution, and when traditional problem,solving methods have failed, thus preventing any one group from imposing its definition of the problem or its solutions on others. [source] Semantic learning designs: recording assumptions and guidelinesBRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Issue 3 2006Miguel-Angel Sicilia Recent developments in the standardisation of learning technology have resulted in models of learning activities and resources including descriptive metadata and definitions of conditional flows for multirole activities. Nonetheless, such learning designs are actually representations of the results of the design process and do not provide information about the rationale of the design, ie, about the theoretical standpoints, assumptions or guidelines applied to come up with the concrete arrangement of activities. These latter elements are critical not only for informative reasons, but as a medium towards the end of connecting theories and hypotheses to actual practice and analysing the resulting empirical data as a form of inquiry on the validity of theoretical assumptions. This paper delineates the main aspects of a schema for the recording of such design rationales using an ontological approach. The method for the engineering of the schema was based on connecting the definitions provided with an existing large ontological base, thus reusing a large amount of common sense knowledge. Two paradigmatic example positions of the range of aspects that could be covered by the representation language are described as an illustration. The resulting ontological definitions can be used as a foundation for the refinement of theoretical positions and for their comparative assessment. [source] Human judgments in New York state sales and use tax forecastingJOURNAL OF FORECASTING, Issue 4 2004Yu-Ying Kuo Abstract Human judgments have become quite important in revenue forecasting processes. This paper centres on human judgments in New York state sales and use tax by examining the actual practices of information integration. Based on the social judgment theory (i.e., the lens model), a judgment analysis exercise was designed and administered to a person from each agency (the Division of the Budget, Assembly Ways and Means Committee Majority and Minority, and the Senate Finance Committee) to understand how information integration is processed among different agencies. The results of the judgment analysis exercise indicated that revenue forecasters put different weight on cues. And, in terms of relative and subjective weights, the cues were used differently, although they were presented with the same information. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Professional development in inquiry-based science for elementary teachers of diverse student groupsJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 10 2004Okhee Lee As part of a larger project aimed at promoting science and literacy for culturally and linguistically diverse elementary students, this study has two objectives: (a) to describe teachers' initial beliefs and practices about inquiry-based science and (b) to examine the impact of the professional development intervention (primarily through instructional units and teacher workshops) on teachers' beliefs and practices related to inquiry-based science. The research involved 53 third- and fourth-grade teachers at six elementary schools in a large urban school district. At the end of the school year, teachers reported enhanced knowledge of science content and stronger beliefs about the importance of science instruction with diverse student groups, although their actual practices did not change significantly. Based on the results of this first year of implementation as part of a 3-year longitudinal design, implications for professional development and further research are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 1021,1043, 2004 [source] Necessities of Origin and ConstitutionPHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, Issue 1 2010Derek A. McDougall The once deeply held conviction that all necessary truths are known a priori is now widely, although by no means universally agreed to have been subjected to penetrating, if not devastating criticism. Scott Soames, for example, on behalf of Saul Kripke, and indirectly of Hilary Putnam, argues that in respect of natural kinds, the introduction of basic essentialist assumptions grounded in our pre-theoretical habits of thinking and speaking , for example, that atomic or molecular structure provides the underlying essence of a substance , allows a sentence like "water = H20," in which the identity sign is flanked by rigid designators to express a metaphysically necessary truth. Yet doubts and puzzlement remain over the status of a posteriori necessities, including those relating to an individual's origin. This paper considers some prominent criticisms that have been made of the Kripke,Putnam approach by A. J. Ayer and Frank Ebersole among others and reveals in what respects they are valid, where they are misplaced, and, perhaps more importantly, why the most valuable aspect of this approach can be seen to reflect aspects of our scientific procedures that do indeed point towards an application for a distinction that roughly mirrors that between epistemic and metaphysical possibility, yet one that is grounded instead in the nature of our actual practices. [source] Protocols, practices, and the reproduction of technique in molecular biology*THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2002Michael Lynch ABSTRACT Protocols are one of the main organizational resources in molecular biology. They are written instructions that specify ingredients, equipment, and sequences of steps for making technical preparations. Some protocols are published in widely used manuals, while others are hand-written variants used by particular laboratories and individual technicians. It is widely understood, both in molecular biology and in social studies of science, that protocols do not describe exactly what practitioners do in the laboratory workplace. In social studies of science, the difference between protocols and the actual practices of doing them often is used to set up ironic contrasts between ,messy' laboratory practices and the appearance of technical order. Alternatively, in ethnomethodological studies of work, the difference is examined as a constitutive feature, both of the livedwork of doing technical projects, and of the administrative work of regulating and evaluating such projects. The present article takes its point of departure from ethnomethodology, and begins with a discussion of local problems with performing molecular biology protocols on specific occasions. The discussion then moves to particular cases in criminal law in which defense attorneys crossexamine forensic technicians and lab administrators. In these interrogations, the distinction between protocols and actual practices animates the dialogue and becomes consequential for judgments in the case at hand. The article concludes with a discussion of administrative science: the work of treating protocols and paper trails as proxies for actual ,scientific' practices. [source] Discussing sexuality in the clinical setting: The impact of a brief training program for oncology health professionals to enhance communication about sexualityASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, Issue 4 2009Amanda HORDERN Abstract Aim: Cancer and its treatments can profoundly affect a person's sexuality and self-image. However, oncology health professionals (OHP) are often reluctant to discuss these issues with patients. Cancer Council Victoria developed a short workshop to increase OHP's discussion of sexuality issues with cancer patients. We examined the immediate and longer term effect of workshop participation on perceived barriers to these discussions, their confidence in initiating the discussions, and changes in the frequency of their discussing sexuality issues with patients. Method: Twenty-one workshops were conducted involving 155 OHP. The workshops were run by trained facilitators and incorporated cognitive, behavioral and experiential components. A major part of the workshop involved role-playing with simulated patients (trained actors). Questionnaires assessing 20 perceived barriers, seven confidence items and seven practices concerning sexuality discussion were completed by the participants pre-workshop, immediately post-workshop, and 8-weeks post-workshop. Results: Overall 89 participants completed all three assessment phases. Data were analysed to assess change in perceived barriers, confidence and behavior across the three assessment points. Mean scores on 16 of the 20 barriers significantly decreased and scores on all seven confidence measures significantly increased between pre- and immediate post-workshop. Most these changes were maintained 8 weeks later. The mean frequency of sexuality issue discussion in the previous 2 months increased significantly from 3.34 times at pre-workshop to 3.82 times 8 weeks later (P = 0.003). Conclusion: This workshop appeared to reduce perceived barriers, increase confidence and increase actual practices around discussing sexuality issues with cancer patients. [source] WHAT IS IT TO BE A DAUGHTER?BIOETHICS, Issue 1 2007IDENTITIES UNDER PRESSURE IN DEMENTIA CARE ABSTRACT This article concentrates on the care for people who suffer from progressive dementia. Dementia has a great impact on a person's well-being as well as on his or her social environment. Dealing with dementia raises moral issues and challenges for participants, especially for family members. One of the moral issues in the care for people with dementia is centred on responsibilities; how do people conceive and determine their responsibilities towards one another? To investigate this issue we use the theoretical perspective of Margaret Walker. She states that ideas about identity play a crucial role in patterns of normative expectations with regard to the distribution of responsibilities in daily practices of care. The results of this study show how the identity of a family-member is put under pressure and changes during her loved one's illness that leads to difficulties and misunderstandings concerning the issue of responsibility. These results offer an insight into the complexities of actual practices of responsibility and highlight the importance for those caring for people with dementia of attending carefully to how they see themselves and how they see other people involved (Who am I? Who do I want to be for the other?). Answers to such questions show what people expect from themselves and from one another, and how they, at any rate, are distributing responsibilities in a given situation. Professional caregivers should take into account that family members might have different ideas about who they are and consequently about what their responsibilities are. [source] Where do educational technologists really publish?BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Issue 1 2006An examination of successful emerging scholars' publication outlets This study engages the question of where successful emerging (pretenure) scholars are most likely to publish their research. Spurred on by findings of a survey of leaders in the field of educational technology/instructional design and technology (ET/IDT) to determine the advisability of a rank-ordered list of journals for the purposes of decision making about tenure and promotion, this document analysis presents the results of measuring the conventional wisdom against the actual practices of emerging scholars. Findings suggest that pretenure scholars publish in a wide variety of outlets including some, but not all of those identified in earlier surveys. While it is understood that the tenure decision is a complicated one,based on many criteria (eg, teaching, service, grantsmanship, etc), research and scholarship remain primary determinants. Therefore, these findings will be useful to emerging scholars and to those decision makers seeking direction regarding research outlets. The study is limited by a focus from an original survey conducted in 2003 to primarily North American scholars as participants, however, international considerations are included. The findings indicate that a list of journals for tenure decision making may not be advisable at this point in the development of the field of ET/IDT. [source] Sustainability practices of SMEs: the case of NZBUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 4 2006S. R. Lawrence Abstract While individually small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) may have small social, environmental and financial impacts, cumulatively their impact is significant. One of the fundamental questions is how a single economic entity, especially a small-scale enterprise, can be engaged in the uptake of sustainability practices. This question is particularly pertinent to New Zealand, where 98% of enterprises are SMEs. In this paper questions are raised about the conventional models of ,business ethics' and accountability and their relevance to SMEs. The paper reports on actual practices and discusses the possibility of small enterprises having accountability for their social and environmental impacts. Ways of linking individual firm activities to sustainability, such as a communitarian model of accountability, are discussed and illustrated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||