More Than Just A Job: Person-centered Career Planning

[Excerpt] Person-Centered Career Planning is an approach to career development that helps people with disabilities develop and realize their dreams. It uses job seekers\u27 dreams, goals, personal preferences, interests, and needs as the cornerstone of the career planning process. The bottom line of Person-Centered Career Planning is to help people figure out what they want to do, and help them organize a plan to get there. Person-Centered Career Planning focuses on identifying what the job seeker wants to do rather than skills and limitations he or she may have. It does not have to involve a big meeting, nor is it only for people with the most significant disabilities. People with all kinds of experiences can benefit from identifying their interests, preferences, and needs in career development

Local Preferences and Place of Death in Regions within England 2010

This report shows public preferences for place of death in the nine English Government Office Regions (GORs), obtained from a population-based telephone survey in 2010. It compares the results with a similar survey carried out in 2003 to understand how preferences are evolving over time. It goes on to contrast these preferences with actual place of death (as reported for that region) in order to shed light on how people's wishes relate to reality and to aid care planning so that preferences are more frequently met

Women’s status and reproductive preferences in Eritrea

The importance of women’s decision-making autonomy has recently emerged as a key factor in influencing reproductive preferences and demand for family planning in developing countries. In this study, the effect of direct indicators of women’s decision-making autonomy on fertility preferences and ever-use of modern contraception is examined using logistic regression models with and without proxy indicators. The results provide evidence that different dimensions of women’s autonomy influence the outcome variables differently in terms of magnitude and statistical significance. Particularly, women’s final say in decisions regarding day-to-day household purchases and spousal communication about family planning are influential predictors of fertility preferences and ever-use of modern family planning methods. At the same time, results show that the effects of women’s education on fertility preferences are not always significant although it has significant roles in affecting women’s decision-making autonomy. Women’s household economic situation has always significant effects on women’s autonomy as well as on fertility preferences and ever use of contraception. Thus, a complete explanation of the relationship between women’s autonomy and reproductive preferences must recognize the effects of both proxy and direct indicators of women’s autonomy. Interventions are needed to improve women’s decision-making autonomy and strengthen their negotiating capacity for family planning use if an increased desire to limit fertility is to be attained.Eritrea, family planning, fertility, women's status

Dynamic Time-Dependent Route Planning in Road Networks with User Preferences

There has been tremendous progress in algorithmic methods for computing driving directions on road networks. Most of that work focuses on time-independent route planning, where it is assumed that the cost on each arc is constant per query. In practice, the current traffic situation significantly influences the travel time on large parts of the road network, and it changes over the day. One can distinguish between traffic congestion that can be predicted using historical traffic data, and congestion due to unpredictable events, e.g., accidents. In this work, we study the \emph{dynamic and time-dependent} route planning problem, which takes both prediction (based on historical data) and live traffic into account. To this end, we propose a practical algorithm that, while robust to user preferences, is able to integrate global changes of the time-dependent metric~(e.g., due to traffic updates or user restrictions) faster than previous approaches, while allowing subsequent queries that enable interactive applications

Integrating multicriteria decision analysis and scenario planning : review and extension

Scenario planning and multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) are two key management science tools used in strategic planning. In this paper, we explore the integration of these two approaches in a coherent manner, recognizing that each adds value to the implementation of the other. Various approaches that have been adopted for such integration are reviewed, with a primary focus on the process of constructing preferences both within and between scenarios. Biases that may be introduced by inappropriate assumptions during such processes are identified, and used to motivate a framework for integrating MCDA and scenario thinking, based on applying MCDA concepts across a range of "metacriteria" (combinations of scenarios and primary criteria). Within this framework, preferences according to each primary criterion can be expressed in the context of different scenarios. The paper concludes with a hypothetical but non-trivial example of agricultural policy planning in a developing country

Process Planning Based on User Preferences

Typical approaches to adaptive slicing in previous literature have typically used surface finish requirements to control the slicing process. As a result, slice schemes improve the part's surface quality, but do not enable explicit trade-offs between finish and build time. The purpose of this article is to present a process planning method that enables the preferences of the user for surface finish, build time, and accuracy to control how trade-offs are made in a process plan. A multiobjective goal formulation is used by this method to evaluate how well user preferences are met by a process plan. This method consists of three modules, for determining part orientation, for slicing the part, and for determining other parameter values. An example with several scenarios representing different user preferences is provided to illustrate the process planning method.Mechanical Engineerin

Enriching Stakeholder participation through Environmental Valuation; Eliciting Preferences for a National Park Designation in Northern Ireland

This paper provides the theoretical framework and describes the preliminary steps for combining collaborative planning and non-market valuation techniques to improve the decision making process and stakeholder involvement in land use decisions. Combining components of Collaborative Planning (CP) — a Planning theory seeking to achieve the highest level of consensus possible amongst all stakeholders — with non-market valuation techniques (Travel Cost Method and Contingent Behaviour) - widely used in environmental economics — this study attempts to elicit the preferences of the Northern Ireland population which could be affected by the proposed designation of a National Park. The CP elements of public participation are first used as an aid to design the survey instrument and then explored as a means of the validation of results analysed from the survey. In a Contingent Behaviour survey, key attributes are set at varying levels to assess how respondents’ welfare would be affected by hypothetical changes in the management and infrastructures of a recreational area.travel cost, contingent behaviour, revealed preferences, stated preferences, national park designation, collaborative planning, stakeholder involvement, Environmental Economics and Policy,