The Concept of Employment in Social Welfare Programs: The Need for Change in Concept and Practice

Social welfare and social work practice are based upon and limited by concepts concerning the role of work in society. These include coverage, vestedness, administration, and the wage-stop. As human labor becomes quantitatively less important in the technological society, and as attitudes toward work change, the role of social work should become proactive -- leading toward necessary and desirable changes, including new meanings of the concept work and new methods of distributing income, rather than continuing to attempt to shore up an increasingly outmoded systems of values and structures. In examining the content of the major social work textbooks published in the United States during the 1970s, Ephross and Reisch (1982) identify the basic ideological positions of the authors, distinguishing between those that view social welfare and social work as concerned primarily with the socioeconomic system; those that deal mostly with individual differences; and those that attempt to do both. In none of these books, however, including that of this author (Macarov, 1978), is the immanence of the concept of employment throughout welfare programs posited as a major determinant of the welfare systems and social work. It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to point out the ubiquitousness of the work/welfare link throughout social welfare programs, and to trace the deleterious results of that link in terms of the individual and social problems caused

Social Workers\u27 Satisfactions: Methodological Notes and Substantive Findings

The use of instruments derived from industrial research to investigate the work satisfactions of social workers can lead to distortion of results. Responses from ninety-one social workers in nine agencies indicates sources of satisfactions and dissatisfactions not present in industrial settings, and -- in contradistinction to the dual-factor or bipolarity theory -- both satisfactions and dissatisfactions arising from the same source in some cases. The most important factors affecting workers\u27 satisfactions were the ability to achieve results, their relationships with clients, their relationship with members of multidisciplinary staffs, and presence or absence of sufficient time and resources. The higher order needs -- recognition, responsibility, and advancement -- found in industrial research do not appear in these responses. There are implications for social work education in these findings

High-resolution mass spectrometry applied to the identification of transformation products of quinolones from stability studies and new metabolites of enrofloxacin in chicken muscle tissues

The aim of this work was the identification of new metabolites and transformation products (TPs) in chicken muscle from Enrofloxacin (ENR), Ciprofloxacin (CIP), Difloxacin (DIF) and Sarafloxacin (SAR), which are antibiotics that belong to the fluoroquinolones family. The stability of ENR, CIP, DIF and SAR standard solutions versus pH degradation process (from pH 1.5 to 8.0, simulating the pH since the drug is administered until its excretion) and freeze-thawing (F/T) cycles was tested. In addition, chicken muscle samples from medicated animals with ENR were analyzed in order to identify new metabolites and TPs. The identification of the different metabolites and TPs was accomplished by comparison of mass spectral data from samples and blanks, using liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight (LC-QqToF) and Multiple Mass Defect Filter (MMDF) technique as a pre-filter to remove most of the background noise and endogenous components. Confirmation and structure elucidation was performed by liquid chromatography coupled to linear ion trap quadrupole Orbitrap (LC-LTQ-Orbitrap), due to its mass accuracy and MS/MS capacity for elemental composition determination. As a result, 21 TPs from ENR, 6 TPs from CIP, 14 TPs from DIF and 12 TPs from SAR were identified due to the pH shock and F/T cycles. On the other hand, 14 metabolites were identified from the medicated chicken muscle samples. Formation of CIP and SAR, from ENR and DIF, respectively, and the formation of desethylene-quinolone were the most remarkable identified compounds

SENIOR-LØKEN SYNDROME: A Case Series and Review of the Renoretinal Phenotype and Advances of Molecular Diagnosis

PURPOSE: To report genetic and clinical findings in a case series of 10 patients from eight unrelated families diagnosed with Senior-Løken syndrome. METHODS: A retrospective study of patients with Senior-Løken syndrome. Data collected included clinical findings electroretinography and ocular imaging. Genetic analysis was based on molecular inversion probes, whole-exome sequencing (WES), and Sanger sequencing. RESULTS: All patients who underwent electrophysiology (8/10) had widespread photoreceptor degeneration. Genetic analysis revealed two mutations in NPHP1, two mutations in NPHP4, and two mutations in IQCB1 (NPHP5). Five of the six mutations identified in the current study were found in a single family each in our cohort. The IQCB1-p.R461* mutation has been identified in 3 families. Patients harboring mutations in IQCB1 were diagnosed with Leber congenital amaurosis, while patients with NPHP4 and NPHP1 mutations showed early and sector retinitis pigmentosa, respectively. Full-field electroretinography was extinct for 6 of 10 patients, moderately decreased for two, and unavailable for another 2 subjects. Renal involvement was evident in 7/10 patients at the time of diagnosis. Kidney function was normal (based on serum creatinine) in patients younger than 10 years. Mutations in IQCB1 were associated with high hypermetropia, whereas mutations in NPHP4 were associated with high myopia. CONCLUSION: Patients presenting with infantile inherited retinal degeneration are not universally screened for renal dysfunction. Modern genetic tests can provide molecular diagnosis at an early age and therefore facilitate early diagnosis of renal disease with recommended periodic screening beyond childhood and family planning