Prof. D R . Gerhardus Van Der Leeuw

No Abstrac

Contemporary practices in social work supervision: time for new paradigms?

Social work supervision is considered to be a core feature in the development of social work’s professional identity and practice and provides an important vehicle in which its outcomes are mediated and supported. Its key stakeholders may include people who use services, practitioners, and educators, those leading and managing services and organisations providing services. Good quality supervision has been cited as a potential pivot upon which the integrity and excellence of practice can be maintained. However, over the last two decades, much has been written about the impact of globalised social and political influences and economic changes impacting on social work. The status, purpose and epistemology of social work supervision in the literature have constantly been contested within this context resulting in its re-positioning to serve more conservative and restrictive environments. These developments have also given rise to the emergence of contradictory viewpoints about the key purpose of supervision, its empirical basis and the need for a cultural shift to address tensions between technicist approaches and relationship-based approaches. It is therefore timely to review and review and re-examine the state of knowledge, research and practice about social work supervision and to capture any new developments that might inform critical practice, professional development and wellbeing as well as its wider impact on accountability, effectiveness and work performance. We are therefore really pleased to be the guest editors for this themed issue in the European Journal of Social Work, which has enabled us to bring together a very wide range of contributions capturing contemporary empirical evaluations of theoretical and practice models in supervision. These come from international perspectives in regions including West Africa, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong-Kong, USA, Canada; Denmark, Israel, England, Scotland and Ireland. The range of papers in this collection has adopted global perspectives as well as empirical accounts of experiences and practices in supervision which are both action oriented and reflective

Evaluation of Adult Lucas County Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime, Inc. (TASC): Outcomes Related to Program Completion

The central purpose of this research was to evaluate the Lucas County, Ohio Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) program for adult clients. The principal investigator was Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Melissa W. Burek, Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in conjunction with Stacey Rychener, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Evaluation Services and associates at BGSU. Co-author of the report that follows was Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Christine Englebrecht, Ph.D., also of BGSU. Data collection for the project began in January 2009 and completed in late March of same year. We had three general objectives for this evaluation study: To identify the extent to which TASC participants complete treatment compared to non-TASC participants To ascertain significant factors related to TASC program completion To identify the extent of recidivism for TASC participants compared to non-TASC participants In general, compared to the probation-only sample, simply participating in TASC on some level led to decreased problem behaviors. This finding is definitely something for which Director Sylak and his staff should be commended and supported to continue for the communities in Lucas County and Toledo, Ohio. TASC is a promising program and has already demonstrated its effectiveness since the first evaluation study

A Fact-Oriented Approach In Macro-Case Analysis: A Section 385 Illustration

Prior research has not adequately addressed the coding issue in macro-case analysis research. This study provides a fact-oriented approach (in contrast to the traditional opinion-oriented approach) to deal with this issue. We argue that while a traditional opinion-oriented approach can reveal the influential factors considered by judges in the precedents, a fact-oriented approach provides a decision model with predictability which does not exist in an opinion-oriented approach. The differences between these two approaches are demonstrated by applying them to the Code Section 385 dilemma (i.e., the debt-equity classification). Results show that decision models developed by these two approaches are very different but with similar classification accuracy. Consequently, management and practitioners can use a fact-oriented approach as a supplemental method to the traditional opinion-oriented approach to predict the judicial outcome

Payroll Tax Incidence: An Empirical Investigation of Shifting the Payroll Tax Burden

The payroll tax earmarked for the financing of social security benefits has been the leading growth tax on small businesses over the past few decades. Small businesses pay more in payroll tax than in any other form of tax. Indeed, these taxes are levied on small businesses irrespective of their profits. The statutory incidence of one-half of the payroll tax being paid by the employer and one-half by the employee may be very different from the actual incidence of the tax due to employer shifting mechanisms. While there has been considerable conjecture about the shifting of the payroll tax burden, there has been very little research that has explicitly studied the shifting mechanisms undertaken by small businesses. In this study, responses were elicited from a sample of 182 small business owners in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia to ascertain whether the payroll tax is shifted by passing ii on to the consumer by way of increased prices, passing it on to the employee by way of reduced wages, or absorbed by the business reducing profits. This inquiry found that, in general, small businesses are not likely to shift the employer \u27s share of the tax burden to employees. Specifically, the most popular alternative in dealing with payroll tax increases was lo increase prices for their product/service

An Empirical Investigation of the Minority Interest and Marketability Discounts In Valuation of Closely Held Stock for Estate and Gift Tax Purposes

The discounts for lack of marketability and minority interest are crucial in reducing the value of transferred interests of closely held companies for estate and gift tax purposes. Because the current highest marginal estate and gift tax rate is 49%, there is a strong inducement for CPAs, Attorneys, Investment Bankers, Financial Planners, and others who value these transfers to accurately gauge the judicially allowed discounts for lack of marketability and minority interests in the valuation of closely held stock. This study examines the relationship between Tax Court determined values for lack of marketability and minority discounts to closely held stock from the compromise percentages. Compromise percentage is defined as the mean of the percentage presented by the adversarial parties, the taxpayer, and the IRS, in a judicial action. Additionally, this relationship is examined across industry classifications. The period investigated covers January 1, 1973 through December 31, 2002. Both regular and memorandum decisions by the Tax Court are analyzed over this thirty-year span. Chi-square analysis is used to determine that the Tax Court determined values are not significantly different than the compromise percentages. Furthermore, this finding does not vary across industries. Regression and chi-squared results are augmented with descriptive statistics

An Empirical Assist In Determining Reasonable Compensation In Closely Held Corporations

Reasonable compensation is an often litigated issue in the Tax Court.  This frequency of discord arises from the tax code’s lack of definitive criteria for determining “reasonableness.”  Moreover, classification of payments to shareholder-employees of closely held corporations can have a significant impact on their cash flows and tax burdens.  According to §162 of the Internal Revenue Code, reasonable compensation can be deducted from taxable income of a corporation, but amounts paid to shareholders in excess of the reasonable amount should be classified as dividend payments.  Dividend payments are not deductible from taxable income.  The courts use a variety of factors in determining whether the compensation paid qualifies as reasonable.  The main objective of this study is to determine which factors have the greatest influence on Tax Court decisions concerning the reasonable amount of compensation.  Using  logistic regression, the following factors are found to be significant in predicting the court’s decision: comparison of salaries paid to net and gross income, the comparison of salaries with distributions to shareholders, the prevailing rates of compensation for comparable positions in comparable companies, and the employer’s salary policy as to all employees

An Empirical Investigation of the Minority Interest and Marketability Discounts In Valuation of Closely Held Stock for Estate and Gift Tax Purposes

The discounts for lack of marketability and minority interest are crucial in reducing the value of transferred interests of closely held companies for estate and gift tax purposes. Because the current highest marginal estate and gift tax rate is 49%, there is a strong inducement for CPAs, Attorneys, Investment Bankers, Financial Planners, and others who value these transfers to accurately gauge the judicially allowed discounts for lack of marketability and minority interests in the valuation of closely held stock. This study examines the relationship between Tax Court determined values for lack of marketability and minority discounts to closely held stock from the compromise percentages. Compromise percentage is defined as the mean of the percentage presented by the adversarial parties, the taxpayer, and the IRS, in a judicial action. Additionally, this relationship is examined across industry classifications. The period investigated covers January 1, 1973 through December 31, 2002. Both regular and memorandum decisions by the Tax Court are analyzed over this thirty-year span. Chi-square analysis is used to determine that the Tax Court determined values are not significantly different than the compromise percentages. Furthermore, this finding does not vary across industries. Regression and chi-squared results are augmented with descriptive statistics

Determination of sediment provenance at drift sites using hydrogen isotopes in lipids

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2004Paleoclimate records with sufficient length and temporal resolution to study the occurrence and causal mechanisms of abrupt climate change are exceedingly rare. Rapidly deposited ocean sediments provide the best archive for studying these events through geologic time, but such sites in the open ocean are limited to sediment drift deposits such as the Bermuda Rise in the northwest Atlantic. Using multiple climate proxies in a single core is becoming more common in high-resolution paleoclimate investigations, but a major potential concern for this approach arises from the possibility that the fine fraction of sediment (<63 μm), and the climate proxies within it, may represent conditions far from the deposition site. We hypothesize that hydrogen isotope ratios of alkenones, a class of lipids from phytoplankton, may provide insight into the source of fine fraction sediment. Because of their restricted sources, broad geographic distribution, and excellent preservation properties, alkenones are of particular interest in the emerging field of compound-specific hydrogen isotopic analysis, and the sedimentary abundances, extents of unsaturations, and isotopic compositions of alkenones provide quantitative and near-continuous records. We isolated alkenones from cultured unicellular algae (haptophyte Emiliania huxleyi), surface ocean particulate material, and open ocean sediments to determine the extent and variability of hydrogen isotopic fractionation in the di-, tri-, and tetraunsaturated C37 compounds. We then compared the δD of the alkenones in surface sediments between the Bermuda Rise and the Scotian Margin above which a large (~20%) δD gradient exists. We determined the fractionation between alkenones from suspended particulate samples and the water in which the phytoplankton lived, and examined the variability of alkenone δD during key climate transitions at the Bermuda Rise

База даних уранових родовищ для завдань ядерної криміналістики в Україні

The problem of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials is reviewed. The IAEA statistical data on nuclearmaterial trafficking for the period from 1993 to 2012 are analyzed. Uranium ores from operating deposits in Ukraineare examined taking into account their attributes and features for the purpose of nuclear forensics.Pассмотрена проблема несанкционированного обращения ядерных материалов. Проанализированыстатистические данные МАГАТЭ по обороту ядерных материалов в мире за период с 1993 по 2012 гг.Проанализированы урановые руды из действующих месторождений Украины с точки зрения их атрибутивныхпризнаков для идентификации ядерных материалов для задач ядерной криминалистики.В статі розглянуто проблему несанкціонованого обігу ядерних матеріалів. Проаналізовано статистичні дані МАГАТЕ щодо обігу ядерних матеріалів в світі за період з 1993 по 2012 рр. Проаналізовано уранові руди з діючих родовищ України з точки зору їхніх атрибутивних ознак для ідентифікації ядерних матеріалів для завдань ядерної криміналістики