Thinking about thinking after Munro: the contribution of cognitive interviewing to child-care social work supervision and decision-making practices

There has been a recurrent recognition in inquiry reports following high-profile deaths of children known to welfare services of shortcomings in social workers' analytical and assessment skills. There is an urgent need to explore what might help supervisors and practitioners ‘think about their thinking’. This paper draws on cognitive interviewing (CI) and examines its applicability/transferability to the professional domain of child-care social work supervision. Focusing on how practitioners make sense of their practice, this approach homes in on cognitive understandings but, in so doing, heightens practitioners' awareness of the emotional and affective dimensions of practice and of their thinking. The integration of cognitive and affective ways of knowing resonates with psycho-socially informed ideas about the interrelationship between thinking and feeling and the importance of emotional containment for effective thinking. This paper suggests that combining the psychological underpinnings of CI with psycho-socially informed concepts, such as containment, creates a more robust and holistic theoretical framework for supporting the application of CI in practice. The paper proposes that the adoption of a cognitive andaffective approach to supervisory practice has considerable potential for enhancing practitioners' critical thinking skills and decision-making capabilities, to the benefit of the children and families with whom they work

Broadening Humor: Comic Styles Differentially Tap into Temperament, Character, and Ability

The present study introduces eight comic styles (i.e., fun, humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism) and examines the validity of a set of 48 marker items for their assessment, the Comic Style Markers (CSM). These styles were originally developed to describe literary work and are used here to describe individual differences. Study 1 examines whether the eight styles can be distinguished empirically, in self- and other-reports, and in two languages. In different samples of altogether more than 1500 adult participants, the CSM was developed and evaluated with respect to internal consistency, homogeneity, test–retest reliability, factorial validity, and construct and criterion validity. Internal consistency was sufficiently high, and the median test-retest reliability over a period of 1–2 weeks was 0.86 (N = 148). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the eight styles could be distinguished in both English- (N = 303) and German-speaking samples (N = 1018 and 368). Comparing self- and other-reports (N = 210) supported both convergent and discriminant validity. The intercorrelations among the eight scales ranged from close to zero (between humor and sarcasm/cynicism) to large and positive (between sarcasm and cynicism). Consequently, second-order factor analyses revealed either two bipolar factors (based on ipsative data) or three unipolar factors (based on normative data). Study 2 related the CSM to instruments measuring personality (N = 999), intelligence (N = 214), and character strengths (N = 252), showing that (a) wit was the only style correlated with (verbal) intelligence, (b) fun was related to indicators of vitality and extraversion, (c) humor was related to character strengths of the heart, and (d) comic styles related to mock/ridicule (i.e., sarcasm, cynicism, but also irony) correlated negatively with character strengths of the virtues temperance, transcendence, and humanity. By contrast, satire had a moral goodness that was lacking in sarcasm and cynicism. Most importantly, the two studies revealed that humor might be related to a variety of character strengths depending on the comic style utilized, and that more styles may be distinguished than has been done in the past. The CSM is recommended for future explorations and refinements of comic styles

Towards a Measure of Core Inflation using Singular Spectrum Analysis

This paper constructs a number of possible core measures of annual inflation using Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA). Annual inflation is decomposed into its trend, oscillating and noise components in order to develop an understanding of the trend and cyclicality in South African headline inflation. Five cyclical components are identified with differing amplitude and frequency. The trend and cyclical components of inflation are found to be a good approximation of core inflation, the inertial part of inflation. These core measures are compared to other candidate core measures based on the properties of a good core inflation measure. Generally, the SSA measures outperform commonly use measures of core inflation.Singular Spectrum Analysis, Core Inflation, Non-parametric estimation

Automatic assignment of biomedical categories: toward a generic approach

Motivation: We report on the development of a generic text categorization system designed to automatically assign biomedical categories to any input text. Unlike usual automatic text categorization systems, which rely on data-intensive models extracted from large sets of training data, our categorizer is largely data-independent. Methods: In order to evaluate the robustness of our approach we test the system on two different biomedical terminologies: the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and the Gene Ontology (GO). Our lightweight categorizer, based on two ranking modules, combines a pattern matcher and a vector space retrieval engine, and uses both stems and linguistically-motivated indexing units. Results and Conclusion: Results show the effectiveness of phrase indexing for both GO and MeSH categorization, but we observe the categorization power of the tool depends on the controlled vocabulary: precision at high ranks ranges from above 90% for MeSH to <20% for GO, establishing a new baseline for categorizers based on retrieval methods. Contact: [email protected]

Stadtentwicklung im Untergrund. Skizzen aus der Schweiz

Der Raum, der der Stadt für ihre Entwicklung zur Verfügung steht, ist begrenzt. Die Ansprüche der Menschen an Wohn-, Arbeits- und Erlebnisraum wachsen , ebenso steigt die Zuwanderung , der Verkehr benötigt immer mehr Platz, die Belastungen vor allem durch Lärm nehmen exponenziell zu, der Kulturlandverschleiss und die Landschaftszerstörungen rufen nach Eindämmung der Siedlungsausbreitung, nach Verdichtung und Konzentration, nach Siedlungsentwicklung nach innen und das heisst auch: nach unten. Die Stadt muss die Räume, die der Untergrund anbietet, für ihre Entwicklung nutzen. Zu den bebaubaren Räumen des Untergrunds kommen nutzbares Gestein, geothermische Energie, Trinkwasser. Die Politik macht sich für die Nutzung des Untergrunds nicht stark; die Stadtplaner kennen die Beschaffenheit des Untergrunds und sein Potenzial für die Stadtentwicklung nicht; mangelnde geologische Kenntnisse des Untergrunds können zu Schäden führen (s. Staufen im Breisgau, unten 5.4); die Raumplanung und das Raumplanungsrecht befassen sich kaum mit dem Untergrund. Seine Inanspruchnahme ist unkoodiniert. Dadurch entstehen Nutzungskonflikte, und die Gefahr wächst, dass das Potenzial des Untergrunds nicht ausgeschöpft wird. Der Untergrund muss auf allen „Ebenen“ in die Raumplanung schlechthin und besonders in die Planung der Stadtentwicklung einbezogen werden. Vielfach ist von der dreidimensionalen Stadtentwicklung die Rede. Es geht aber darum, die Methoden und Instrumente der (Raum)Planung über die flächige und auf den oberirdischen Raum beschränkte Anwendung hinaus auch fruchtbar zu machen für die unterirdische Dimension des Raums. Es ist zu prüfen, wieweit das Recht sich mit der städtischen Untergrundplanung befassen muss, wieweit bestehende Instrumente der Raumplanung für die spezifischen Belange der Nutzung des Untergrunds taugen, wieweit besondere Regelungen zum Untergrund auf den verschiedenen Planungsebenen notwendig sind, wie die Koordination der unterschiedlichen Nutzungsansprüche zustande gebracht werden kann, wieweit eine gesamtheitliche Sichtweise eine neue Methodik erfordert, wieweit das geltende Recht über den Umfang des Grundeigentums und die Abgrenzung der Zuständigkeiten und Interessenbereiche für die Nutzung des Untergrunds noch genügt, ob die 3D-Vermessung hinreichend Unterstützung bietet. Solche und ähnliche Fragen sollen im Folgenden zur Sprache kommen. Dabei soll das Schwergewicht auf den Verhältnissen in der Schweiz liegen

The Interactive Minority Game: a Web based investigation of human market interactions

The unprecedented access offered by the World Wide Web brings with it the potential to gather huge amounts of data on human activities. Here we exploit this by using a toy model of financial markets, the Minority Game (MG), to investigate human speculative trading behaviour and information capacity. Hundreds of individuals have played a total of tens of thousands of game turns against computer-controlled agents in the Web-based Interactive Minority Game. The analytical understanding of the MG permits fine-tuning of the market situations encountered, allowing for investigation of human behaviour in a variety of controlled environments. In particular, our results indicate a transition in players' decision-making, as the markets become more difficult, between deductive behaviour making use of short-term trends in the market, and highly repetitive behaviour that ignores entirely the market history, yet outperforms random decision-making.Experimental economics and financial markets; Decision theory and game theory; Information theory

The emotions of gelotophobes: Shameful, fearful, and joyless?

The present research examines the hypothesis that the fear of being laughed at is related to three emotions: shame, fear, and (low) joy. In two self-report studies the participants (N = 234, N = 102) filled in the GELOPH (Ruch and Titze, GELOPH〈46〉. Unpublished questionnaire, 1998) for the assessment of the level of gelotophobia and the Anchor Que question form (Ekman, Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life, Owl Books, 2007) measuring five parameters (latency, maximal intensity, duration, expression, and intensity during a typical week) of emotions. Across both studies gelotophobes reported that their maximal experience of shame was of a higher intensity and longer duration, also they reported experiencing shame more frequently during a typical week. Their maximal experience of happiness was less intense, and it took longer for these intense feeling to develop lasting for shorter periods of time. Gelotophobia was also positively related to intensity, duration, and intensity experienced during a typical week of fear. Among individuals with a higher prevalence of shame, compared to happiness, approximately 50% were gelotophobes. Gelotophobia is notably related to the interplay of three emotions fear, shame and the low disposition to happiness. This dynamic is a new, yet equally plausible explanation for the onset of gelotophobi

Merchandising et mise en place des collections en bibliothèques de lecture publique

L’application des techniques de marketing à la gestion des bibliothèques est très débattue. En revanche, l’application spécifique des techniques de merchandising est une pratique nettement moins évoquée. Le merchandising est une sous-discipline du marketing qui s’occupe de l’allocation des emplacements et de la présentation des produits sur le point de vente. En bibliothèque, il s’agit donc de développer une démarche marketing pour la mise en espace des documents. Dans ce travail, les principes du merchandising sont transposés pour une application en bibliothèque de lecture publique. Les bibliothèques génèrent une grande quantité de données de circulation et de description des documents : ce travail explore aussi comment ces données de grande qualité peuvent être exploitées et valorisées dans une démarche de merchandising.The application of marketing methods for libray management is a much debated question. On the other hand, the specific application of merchandising methods is less debated. Merchandising is a component of marketing whose concern is the in-store allocation of space for products and their presentation. Hence for public libraries, the idea is to apply a marketing approach specifically centered on space utilization for documents. In this paper, merchandising principles are adaptated for an application in public libraries. Libraries create a lot of circulation datas and document description datas : this paper explores as well how those high quality datas can be used and how they can create value in the perspective of a merchandising approach

The Application of Signature Character Strengths and Positive Experiences at Work

We hypothesized that the amount of positive experiences at work (job satisfaction, pleasure, engagement, meaning) is a function of the extent to which the situational circumstances at the workplace allow for the application of an individual's signature character strengths. For the description of the individual a reliable and valid instrument already exists, but not for the environment. Hence, the newly developed Applicability of Character Strengths Rating Scales (ACS-RS) with information on its reliability and validity were also presented. A sample of 1,111 adults filled in the ACS-RS and measures for possession of character strengths and positive experiences at work. The ACS-RS was reliable by means of internal consistency and inter-rater reliability. It proved to be valid in several ways being sensitive to: (a) the differences in the applicability of trait-relevant behavior in formal versus informal situations by showing higher applicability of the character strengths in the latter; (b) the differences between traits regarding their applicability across situations; (c) people's disposition to choose situations fitting their dispositions by showing positive relationships between the degree of possession and applicability. Moreover, correlations between applicability of strengths and positive experiences increased with the individual centrality of the strengths. The more signature strengths were applied at the workplace, the higher the positive experiences at work. This study showed that character strengths matter in vocational environments irrespective of their content. Strengths-congruent activities at the workplace are important for positive experiences at work like job satisfaction and experiencing pleasure, engagement, and meaning fostered by one's jo