Implementing Welfare-to-Work Services: A Study of Staff Decision-Making

Copyright 2006 Alliance for Children and FamiliesIn the post-welfare reform era, increased discretion has been given to frontline staff for day-today welfare policy implementation. To determine how frontline staff address the complex needs of welfare program participants in this new policy environment, the decision-making processes of welfare staff (N = 52) in 11 San Francisco Bay Area county social service agencies were assessed through a case vignette using a Web-based survey design. We examined staff decision making in four areas: problem recognition, goal formulation, information search processes, and evaluation. The results suggest that the high level o f staff discretion apparent in the day-to-day implementation of welfare policy may have important implications for participants. Several recommendations for policy, practice, and future research are presented

To Be Out and In: Influencing factors in the recognition of SOGI-based asylum claims in South Africa and Kenya

This thesis examines the relationship and influence of domestic law and culture on the recognition, respect, and adherence of international refugee law as it pertains to sexual orientation and gender based asylum claims in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using South Africa and Kenya as comparative case studies, the paper explores different factors that have contributed to a discovered lack of influence of policy and culture in the practice of refugee status determination, as domestic interests, bureaucratic structure and decision making, and international affairs and involvement. The purpose of the study is to better understand the fulfillment of sexual orientation and gender based claims within the context of differing legal contexts but similar cultural ones given the unacceptance of sexual and gender non-conforming individuals throughout African culture. By examining these contexts, the goal of the study was to ascertain what factors contribute to these differences so as best practices and strategies can be used and advocated for moving forward

Active Classification: Theory and Application to Underwater Inspection

We discuss the problem in which an autonomous vehicle must classify an object based on multiple views. We focus on the active classification setting, where the vehicle controls which views to select to best perform the classification. The problem is formulated as an extension to Bayesian active learning, and we show connections to recent theoretical guarantees in this area. We formally analyze the benefit of acting adaptively as new information becomes available. The analysis leads to a probabilistic algorithm for determining the best views to observe based on information theoretic costs. We validate our approach in two ways, both related to underwater inspection: 3D polyhedra recognition in synthetic depth maps and ship hull inspection with imaging sonar. These tasks encompass both the planning and recognition aspects of the active classification problem. The results demonstrate that actively planning for informative views can reduce the number of necessary views by up to 80% when compared to passive methods.Comment: 16 page

The Public Trust as an Antimonopoly Doctrine

The public trust doctrine originated—and has persisted in American law—as antimonopoly protection. From the time of its recognition by American courts in the early nineteenth century, the doctrine has protected the public against private monopolization of natural resources, beginning with tidal waters and wild animals. Ensuing public trust case law has extended the scope of trust protection to other important natural resources, including non-tidal and non-navigable waters, and land-based resources like parks. Courts are now considering the trust doctrine’s application to the atmosphere. Although there is a considerable body of legal scholarship on the public trust, the doctrine’s antimonopoly core has not been explored. In this Article, we remedy that oversight by examining the public trust’s justification as an antimonopoly sentiment. Antimonopoly policy is at least as old in American law as the public trust and certainly more politically prominent. Viewing the public trust through the lens of antimonopoly helps to explain the history and evolution of this doctrine and its overriding goal of preventing irreversible commitments of natural resources to private monopolization

Achieving Skill Mobility in the ASEAN Economic Community: Challenges, Opportunity, and Policy Implications

Despite clear aspirations by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to create an effective and transparent framework to facilitate movements among skilled professionals within the ASEAN by December 2015, progress has been slow and uneven. This report examines the challenges ASEAN member states face in achieving the goal of greater mobility for the highly skilled, including hurdles in recognizing professional qualifications, opening up access to certain jobs, and a limited willingness by professionals to move due to perceived cultural, language, and socioeconomic differences. The cost of these barriers is staggering and could reduce the region’s competitiveness in the global market. This report launches a multiyear effort by the Asian Development Bank and the Migration Policy Institute to better understand the issues and develop strategies to gradually overcome the problems. It offers a range of policy recommendations that have been discussed among experts in a high-level expert meeting, taking into account best practices locally and across the region