Clinical Social Work and the Biomedical Industrial Complex

This article examines how the biomedical industrial complex has ensnared social work within a foreign conceptual and practice model that distracts clinical social workers from the special assistance that they can provide for people with mental distress and misbehavior. We discuss: (1) social work\u27s assimilation of psychiatric perspectives and practices during its pursuit of professional status; (2) the persistence of psychiatric hospitalization despite its coercive methods, high cost, and doubtful efficacy; (3) the increasing reliance on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, despite its widely acknowledged scientific frailty; and (4) the questionable contributions of psychoactive drugs to clinical mental health outcomes and their vast profits for the pharmaceutical industry, using antipsychotic drugs as a case example. We review a number of promising social work interventions overshadowed by the biomedical approach. We urge social work and other helping professions to exercise intellectual independence from the reigning paternalistic drug-centered biomedical ideology in mental health and to rededicate themselves to the supportive, educative, and problem-solving methods unique to their disciplines

On the relationship between standard intersection cuts, lift-and-project cuts, and generalized intersection cuts

We examine the connections between the classes of cuts in the title. We show that lift-and-project (L&P) cuts from a given disjunction are equivalent to generalized intersection cuts from the family of polyhedra obtained by taking positive combinations of the complements of the inequalities of each term of the disjunction. While L&P cuts from split disjunctions are known to be equivalent to standard intersection cuts (SICs) from the strip obtained by complementing the terms of the split, we show that L&P cuts from more general disjunctions may not be equivalent to any SIC. In particular, we give easily verifiable necessary and sufficient conditions for a L&P cut from a given disjunction D to be equivalent to a SIC from the polyhedral counterpart of D. Irregular L&P cuts, i.e. those that violate these conditions, have interesting properties. For instance, unlike the regular ones, they may cut off part of the corner polyhedron associated with the LP solution from which they are derived. Furthermore, they are not exceptional: their frequency exceeds that of regular cuts. A numerical example illustrates some of the above properties. © 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and Mathematical Optimization Societ

National institutional systems’ hybridisation through interdependence. The case of EU-Russia gas relations

International audienceThe interdependencies between the EU and its external natural gas suppliers and Russia question the transformative impact of interdependence linked to hybridization processes. Our approach combines theories of institutional change, and French Regulation Theory. These approaches lead to a new look to characterize the way in which the confrontation of two regulatory systems (EU and Russia) is resolved today. The importance of the European market leads however to an adaptation of the Russian governance model for gas exchanges. But it also implies a transformation of the European model. The competitive norm acts as a lever to bring about hybridization of regulations in the Russian gas sector and EU energy policy

On the statistical detection of propagating waves in polar coronal holes

Waves are important for the heating of the solar corona and the acceleration of the solar wind. We have examined a long spectral time series of a northern coronal hole observed on the 20th October 1996, with the SUMER spectrometer onboard SoHO. The observations were obtained in a transition region N IV 765 A line and in a low coronal Ne VIII 770 A line. Our observations indicate the presence of compressional waves with periods of ~25 min. Using Fourier techniques, we measured the phase delays between intensity as well as velocity oscillations in the two chosen lines. From this we are able to measure the travel time of the propagating oscillations and, hence, the propagation speeds of the waves producing the oscillations. We found that there is a difference in the nature of the propagation in bright ('network') and dark ('internetwork') regions with the latter sometimes showing evidence for downwardly propagating waves that is not seen in the former. As, in all cases, the measured propagation speeds are subsonic, we concluded that the detected waves are slow magnetoacoustic in nature.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Nonlinear Integer Programming

Research efforts of the past fifty years have led to a development of linear integer programming as a mature discipline of mathematical optimization. Such a level of maturity has not been reached when one considers nonlinear systems subject to integrality requirements for the variables. This chapter is dedicated to this topic. The primary goal is a study of a simple version of general nonlinear integer problems, where all constraints are still linear. Our focus is on the computational complexity of the problem, which varies significantly with the type of nonlinear objective function in combination with the underlying combinatorial structure. Numerous boundary cases of complexity emerge, which sometimes surprisingly lead even to polynomial time algorithms. We also cover recent successful approaches for more general classes of problems. Though no positive theoretical efficiency results are available, nor are they likely to ever be available, these seem to be the currently most successful and interesting approaches for solving practical problems. It is our belief that the study of algorithms motivated by theoretical considerations and those motivated by our desire to solve practical instances should and do inform one another. So it is with this viewpoint that we present the subject, and it is in this direction that we hope to spark further research.Comment: 57 pages. To appear in: M. J\"unger, T. Liebling, D. Naddef, G. Nemhauser, W. Pulleyblank, G. Reinelt, G. Rinaldi, and L. Wolsey (eds.), 50 Years of Integer Programming 1958--2008: The Early Years and State-of-the-Art Surveys, Springer-Verlag, 2009, ISBN 354068274

Markedly Divergent Tree Assemblage Responses to Tropical Forest Loss and Fragmentation across a Strong Seasonality Gradient

We examine the effects of forest fragmentation on the structure and composition of tree assemblages within three seasonal and aseasonal forest types of southern Brazil, including evergreen, Araucaria, and deciduous forests. We sampled three southernmost Atlantic Forest landscapes, including the largest continuous forest protected areas within each forest type. Tree assemblages in each forest type were sampled within 10 plots of 0.1 ha in both continuous forests and 10 adjacent forest fragments. All trees within each plot were assigned to trait categories describing their regeneration strategy, vertical stratification, seed-dispersal mode, seed size, and wood density. We detected differences among both forest types and landscape contexts in terms of overall tree species richness, and the density and species richness of different functional groups in terms of regeneration strategy, seed dispersal mode and woody density. Overall, evergreen forest fragments exhibited the largest deviations from continuous forest plots in assemblage structure. Evergreen, Araucaria and deciduous forests diverge in the functional composition of tree floras, particularly in relation to regeneration strategy and stress tolerance. By supporting a more diversified light-demanding and stress-tolerant flora with reduced richness and abundance of shade-tolerant, old-growth species, both deciduous and Araucaria forest tree assemblages are more intrinsically resilient to contemporary human-disturbances, including fragmentation-induced edge effects, in terms of species erosion and functional shifts. We suggest that these intrinsic differences in the direction and magnitude of responses to changes in landscape structure between forest types should guide a wide range of conservation strategies in restoring fragmented tropical forest landscapes worldwide

Analysis of ecological thresholds in a temperate forest undergoing dieback.

Positive feedbacks in drivers of degradation can cause threshold responses in natural ecosystems. Though threshold responses have received much attention in studies of aquatic ecosystems, they have been neglected in terrestrial systems, such as forests, where the long time-scales required for monitoring have impeded research. In this study we explored the role of positive feedbacks in a temperate forest that has been monitored for 50 years and is undergoing dieback, largely as a result of death of the canopy dominant species (Fagus sylvatica, beech). Statistical analyses showed strong non-linear losses in basal area for some plots, while others showed relatively gradual change. Beech seedling density was positively related to canopy openness, but a similar relationship was not observed for saplings, suggesting a feedback whereby mortality in areas with high canopy openness was elevated. We combined this observation with empirical data on size- and growth-mediated mortality of trees to produce an individual-based model of forest dynamics. We used this model to simulate changes in the structure of the forest over 100 years under scenarios with different juvenile and mature mortality probabilities, as well as a positive feedback between seedling and mature tree mortality. This model produced declines in forest basal area when critical juvenile and mature mortality probabilities were exceeded. Feedbacks in juvenile mortality caused a greater reduction in basal area relative to scenarios with no feedback. Non-linear, concave declines of basal area occurred only when mature tree mortality was 3-5 times higher than rates observed in the field. Our results indicate that the longevity of trees may help to buffer forests against environmental change and that the maintenance of old, large trees may aid the resilience of forest stands. In addition, our work suggests that dieback of forests may be avoidable providing pressures on mature and juvenile trees do not pass critical thresholds

Verifying integer programming results

Software for mixed-integer linear programming can return incorrect results for a number of reasons, one being the use of inexact floating-point arithmetic. Even solvers that employ exact arithmetic may suffer from programming or algorithmic errors, motivating the desire for a way to produce independently verifiable certificates of claimed results. Due to the complex nature of state-of-the-art MIP solution algorithms, the ideal form of such a certificate is not entirely clear. This paper proposes such a certificate format designed with simplicity in mind, which is composed of a list of statements that can be sequentially verified using a limited number of inference rules. We present a supplementary verification tool for compressing and checking these certificates independently of how they were created. We report computational results on a selection of MIP instances from the literature. To this end, we have extended the exact rational version of the MIP solver SCIP to produce such certificates