Breeding Grounds for Abuse

The same people who endanger the health and lives of dogs for profit often endanger the health and lives of children. An HSUS rescuer describes how puppy mills can be just one element in a circle of violence

Mindful Organizing for the CIO: Towards a Conceptual Model for Transformational Leadership

Considered invaluable to corporate entities, CIOs are relied upon for the strategic oversight of technological infrastructure as well as the articulation of a business case for IT resources. How can CIOs prepare for and respond to dynamic, and often uncertain changes, which challenge organizational resources, processes, and strategies? Research continues to indicate that technological transformation and integration of newer, faster IT capabilities have become a critical focus for the CIO. Extant literature on mindfulness suggests that mindful organizing (MO) can facilitate and enhance the effectiveness of strategic level decision makers. Integrating insights from MO, we present and analyze the literature to build an action orientated framework to support the CIO in leveraging the dynamic capabilities under his/her purview. Our objective is to examine key attributes of mindful organizing which are especially critical to building a level of awareness that cultivates an environment for reliability under transformational leaders

A MINDFULNESS BASED APPROACH TO EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS (EMIS) UTILIZATION AND PERFORMANCE

The 13th of November terrorist attacks in Paris highlight a critical need within the emergency management (EM) domain to demonstrate the value of technological system capacities that support decision making. The world watched scores of police, paramedic, and fire teams communicating and coordinating together to save innocent civilian lives. Many researchers agree that systems should be designed informed by the “cognitive processes” used to respond to unanticipated emergencies. Mindfulness, within emergency management organizations (EMOs,) is created by the complex engagement of five organizational principles. They activate processes which produce capabilities uniquely supported by technology to anticipate and contain unexpected incidents for the EM domain. This paper explores organizational mindfulness (OM)) as a theoretical and methodological mechanism for design, assess and evaluation of emergency management information systems (EMIS). Mindfulness provides a basis for understanding both the EM domain and the organizational capabilities which allow for multiagency coordination. Design Science is proposed to conceptualize an IS artefact that refines our understanding of coordinated real- time decision making (CRDM). This research-in-progress paper adds to literature focused on system utilization and performance through the lens of the EM domain focusing on EMIS utilization to engage in CRDM within operational centres

"When in doubt, deport!": U.S. deportation and the local policing of global migration during the 1920s

This dissertation focuses on deportation practice throughout the 1920s and its social and cultural ramifications, arguing for the necessity of looking beyond the national policy frame to reveal the full significance of deportation in American society. The project highlights the intersecting ideas about race, political ideologies, civil liberties, criminology and pathology, and gender and sexual transgressions that informed the ways a variety of actors enacted deportation and negotiated its meaning on the ground. In so doing, it reveals how deportation served as a locus through which the politics of inclusion and exclusion was remapped. I illustrate what was behind the steady yearly rise in deportees, from 2,762 in 1920 to 16,631 by 1930, and in doing so, question the dominant periodization of deportation, which has often presented it as a series of hysterical, episodic outbursts of repression. Instead, I argue that it was a far more continuous and momentous process of social policing of the national body, and highlight the 1920s as a crucial period when exclusion and belonging were negotiated, not only through legislation, but in the streets, prisons, hospitals, asylums, and media discourse. As immigration officials and local authorities sought to enforce abstract policies, they ran up against the reality of migrants as embodied individuals and communities, whose national and racial identities, sexuality, mental and physical health did not fit within neatly prescribed legal categories. My dissertation is organized along the nesting scales of space at which deportation was practiced: global, national, local, institutional, and the body in detention and transportation. Each of these levels allows for a broader understanding of the intersecting points of authority and state control, ideology and pragmatics required for the building of an unprecedented deportation machinery. At the global level, I explore U.S. participation in international networks to coordinate deportations, the complexity of addressing shifting borders and imperial landscapes, discourses around other nation's deportation practices, and challenges posed by deportees whose trajectories did not fit simple migration patterns. The national level addresses the ways in which deportation served not only to create new delineations of potential citizen or undesirable migrant, but also to build the power of the state, even as it continued to be plagued by insufficient funding and struggles for greater consolidation. At the local level, I trace deportation into the nation’s heartland, arguing that while the law was federal, the enforcement was intensely shaped by local political agendas and police forces, ethnic and racial biases, and labor needs. The institutional chapter explores how the spaces where deportation operated--prisons, mental asylums, hospitals, juvenile reformatories--were all critical sites in the early twentieth century for the identification, surveillance, and punishment of individuals within hierarchies of racialized bodies. Finally, I go down to the level of embodied experience, as deportees underwent long periods of detention in county jails, private homes, and makeshift holding centers, train journeys to the ports for removal, and the complex logistics of shipping and ground transport abroad. Examined from these angles, deportation becomes far more than a tool of immigration policy at the borders. Indeed, deportation practice during the early 20th century expanded the reach of the bureaucratic state and brought the process of determining inclusion and exclusion into cities, towns, and institutions across the interior of the country

Design drift and reflective conversation in Design Science Research: A case study of problem formulation

Design Science Research is a well-established theoretical and methodological approach to design, build, and evaluate IS artefacts. However, research suggests that the engagement of subjective and ethereal processes of design are not well documented in literature, highlighting a significant challenge to understanding design praxeology, or the study of practices and processes of design. This paper explores the artefact conceptualization stages of DSR using a case study focused on the utilization of emergency management information systems to propose two approaches to understanding and presenting the design process. Design drift and reflective conversation are proposed and applied to a DSR project to create a conceptual design for a mindfulness-based evaluation framework for EMIS supported decision making. By removing some of the mysticism often associated with abductive reasoning, the study demonstrates ways researchers can be more effective in using cognitive mapping tools and communicating approaches to illustrate the inferential processes that are unique to DSR

Evaluating an emergency management decision support system with practitioner-driven scenarios: action design research

Evaluating an IT artifact is essential in design science, as it serves to validate that a solution has achieved the purpose for which it was designed. This paper presents the evaluation of an emergency management (EM) decision support system (DSS). The DSS addresses the informational needs of strategic-level decision makers in the event of large-scale disasters. Disasters, by their very nature, are complex and unpredictable, require emergency responders to make rapid high risk decisions with the potential for life threatening and economically devastating results. This study details a phased evaluation using three scenarios: (1) Biological Hazard Response, (2) Cross-Border Chemical Explosion and Bio-Hazard, and (3) Regional and Interregional Mass Flooding. The mixed method evaluation elicited participant feedback to test usability and utility, guided by action design research. To ensure parity between scenarios, an existing EM framework informed scenario design with the unique addition of the DSS to support end-user processes

The failure of suicide prevention in primary care: family and GP perspectives - a qualitative study

Background Although Primary care is crucial for suicide prevention, clinicians tend to report completed suicides in their care as non-preventable. We aimed to examine systemic inadequacies in suicide prevention from the perspectives of bereaved family members and GPs.Methods Qualitative study of 72 relatives or close friends bereaved by suicide and 19 General Practitioners who have experienced the suicide of patients.Results Relatives highlight failures in detecting symptoms and behavioral changes and the inability of GPs to understand the needs of patients and their social contexts. A perceived overreliance on anti-depressant treatment is a major source of criticism by family members. GPs tend to lack confidence in the recognition and management of suicidal patients, and report structural inadequacies in service provision.Conclusions Mental health and primary care services must find innovative and ethical ways to involve families in the decision-making process for patients at risk of suicide

An evaluation of advanced access in general practice

Aims: To evaluate ‘Advanced Access’ in general practice, and assess its impact on patients, practice organisation, activity, and staff.Objectives: To describe the range of strategies that general practices have employed to improve access to care To determine the impact of Advanced Access on the wait for an appointment, continuity of care, practice workload, and demand on other NHS services. To explore the perceptions of different groups of patients, including both users and non-users of services, about the accessibility of care and their satisfaction with access to care in relation to different models of organisation. To explore the trade-offs that patients make between speed of access, continuity of care and other factors when making an appointment in general practice. To explore the perceptions of general practitioners and receptionists about working with the NPDT and implementing changes to practice arrangements to improve access. To assess the impact of the above changes in practice organisation on staff job satisfaction and team climate.Method and results: This research was based on a comparison of 48 general practices, half of which operated Advanced Access appointment systems and half of which did not (designated ‘control’ practices). These practices were recruited from 12 representative Primary Care Trusts (PCTs). From within these 48 practices, eight (four Advanced Access and four control) were selected for in-depth case study using an ethnographic approach. The research was comprised of several component studies. These included: • A survey of all practices in 12 PCTs. Based on this we recruited the 24 Advanced Access and 24 control practices and the 8 case study practices. • An assessment of appointments available and patients seen, based on appointments records • An assessment of continuity of care based on patients’ records • Random phone calls to practices to assess ability to make an appointment by telephone • A questionnaire survey of patients attending the practices • A postal survey of patients who had not attended the surgery in the previous 12 months • A discrete choice experiment to explore trade-offs patients make between access and other factors • A survey of practice staff • Qualitative case studies in 8 practices • Interviews with PCT access facilitators The methods and results for each of these studies are described below, in relation to each of the research objectives.<br/