Multiplicity Of Agencies Research Articles

'They don't want them to have capacity': Multi-agency operationalisation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 in England with adults who self-neglect.

The number of adults who self-neglect and thus fall under the aegis of local authority adult safeguarding procedures in England has increased substantially since the introduction of the Care Act 2014. The requirement for collaborative working between agencies dealing with these adults in a safeguarding context is explicit in government policy and legislation. Decisions made by the multiplicity of agencies that may work with people who self-neglect are largely guided by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). The overall objective of this research was to develop a clearer understanding of how the range of agencies that might typically be involved in the life of a self-neglecting person work together. This article examines how agencies put the MCA into practice in their work with people who self-neglect, and how they understand their own and others' roles and responsibilities in so doing. This qualitative study took place in two local authorities in England from 2016 to 2017 and informed a wider action research study which was completed in 2019. Non-probability purposive sampling was used to recruit participants from the professional groups who might typically be involved with self-neglect cases. À total of 245 participants from across 17 different professional groups took part in semi-structured interviews, in a group, paired or individual format, decided by their customary working configuration. Data from the interview transcripts was analysed using thematic analysis. Three key themes in relation to how participants understood the MCA and multi-agency working emerged from the analysis of this data set. These were; a lack of understanding of the MCA by participants and other agencies; a reluctance to engage with MCA assessments; and a perception of manipulation of the MCA by other professionals. This study underlines the importance of the informed application of the MCA in working with people who self-neglect, and an urgent need to consider how this could be enhanced if the service user is not to experience intrusive interventions resulting from professional misinterpretation.

Ensaio de semiótica perspectivista: as revoltas de Junho de 2013 e a política da significação

Resumo Acontecimentos com a intensidade das revoltas de Junho de 2013 no Brasil colocam um problema incontornável para os teóricos da comunicação e da semiótica: a política da significação. A multiplicidade de percepções e de sentidos nos traz de volta o problema da relação entre fato e representação, entre objeto de enunciado e sujeito de enunciação. A revolta não é um dado inerte passível de múltiplas representações, mas é uma multiplicidade absoluta de agenciamentos em constante disputa. Os sujeitos e objetos da enunciação são muito mais um efeito da política de significação instaurada do que a condição de possibilidade dos discursos sobre a revolta. Como formular um diagnóstico com focos de enunciação tão instáveis, sem as dualidades prescritivas de praxe? O presente ensaio parte dessa problemática para pensar uma semiótica perspectivista no enredamento entre a antropologia de Viveiros de Castro e o processo aberto pelas revoltas de Junho.

Social Authorship and the Production of Texts in Late Chosŏn: An Analytical Bibliography

Abstract This research aims to revisit the study of the Ch’ŏngjanggwan chŏnsŏ (Complete works of Yi Tŏngmu, 1741-1793), with particular emphasis on its collaborative production, transmission, and modern appropriation. By analyzing eight different versions from North America, Japan, Korea, and China, I explore how each text was constructed by multiple agencies and constantly transformed through historical transmission. In the process of the collaborative production of the book, the selection of a primary author’s work was reinterpreted by the choices of those who received and collected the given collection of Yi’s writings. Although Yi is considered the author, each manuscript collection was transformed without his knowledge or consent. Thus, through a complex process of adaptation and transformation, a multiplicity of agencies involved in the production of the book have filtered and negotiated the author’s original intention. Addressing the notion of “social authorship,” this research challenges the solitary author model as well as the notion of canon as a complete and fixed entity. All the texts examined in this study were cultural and social products. Ch’ŏngjanggwan chŏnsŏ was produced and transformed through constant negotiations among the original author, editors, and readers. Although it has been valued as one of the most important literary canons of late Chosŏn, the collection was not a closed set of texts; rather, the particular set of texts in any version is “fluid and flexible,” and transformation during transmission was expected.

"Three Nooses on Our Head": The Influence of District Health Reforms on Maternal Health Service Delivery in Vietnam.

Background: The impact of reorganisation on health services delivery is a recurring issue in every healthcare system. In 2005 Vietnam reorganised the delivery of health services at the district level by splitting preventive, curative, and administrative roles. This qualitative study explored how these reforms impacted on the organisation of maternal health service delivery at district and commune levels. Methods: Forty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with health staff and managers involved in the provision of maternal health services from the commune to the central level within five districts of two Northern provinces in Vietnam. The data were analysed thematically. Results: The results showed that 10 years after the reforms created three district-level entities, participants reported difficulties in management of health services at the district and commune levels in Vietnam. The reforms were largely perceived to negatively affect the efficient and effective use of clinical and other resources. At the commune level, the reforms are said to have affected the quality of supervision of the communes and their staff and increased the workload in community health centres. Conclusion: The findings from this study suggest that the current organisation of district health services in Vietnam may have had unintended negative consequences. It also indicates that countries which decide to reform their systems in a manner similar to Vietnam need to pay attention to coordination between a multiplicity of agencies at the district level.

Housing and resilience: case studies from the Cook Islands

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss a tool for evaluating resilience of housing, which was tested in the Cook Islands. The Pacific Islands is widely known as being highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. In addition to long-term impacts such as sea level rise, current impacts such as tropical cyclones wreak havoc and the housing sector is often most severely affected. There is therefore a critical need for assessing the resilience of housing in the region. In response to that need, an evaluation tool for assessing housing resilience was developed, discussed in this paper. Design/methodology/approach The analytical framework of the tool consists of five main factors – inputs, output, result, impacts & effects and external factors – and the tool was tested in the Cook Islands. Two housing case studies implemented and/or facilitated by Australia-based agencies on two different island locations were examined: On Aitutaki, it was a reconstruction project built after Cyclone Pat in 2010; in Mangaia, it was a program for strengthening roofing against cyclones. Findings It was found that in different ways both the projects had improved the resilience of the beneficiary communities. However, a number of challenges were also evident in meeting the wider needs of the beneficiaries and long-term sustainability. The sustainability of these interventions, and indeed that of the islands facing severe resource constraints and rapid demographic and environmental change, posed serious questions. Originality/value The study allowed confirming the importance of the evaluation tool in the global context of climate change and consequent widespread disaster occurrence, and the devastating impact on the housing sector. In that respect, while there are obvious implications for other Pacific islands, the findings of the study offer wider global lessons for the multiplicity of agencies engaged in housing reconstruction, disaster risk reduction and development.

Translating Racial Genomics: Passages in and Beyond the Lab

While qualitative studies of science have traditionally focused on sciences as bounded cultures, or cohesive communities that operate in well-defined research settings, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) helps to envision the complex processual formation of scientific associations across a diverse array of social entities and sites. Using the case of race and health disparities research in genetic science, this article explores how ANT’s emphasis on agentic symmetry, and the translation of interests between humans and nonhumans, makes visible the multiplicity of agencies and research institutes that, guided by the US federal government’s Directive No. 15, marshaled genomics to construct race as a social problem. It also examines the multiplicity of methodological strategies such an analysis entails. Here, qualitative analysis of government regulations, policy councils, funding mechanisms, scientific practices, and statements from key scientists in elite biomedical positions is used to show how it came to be that racial governance became an “obligatory passage point” for scientists, and, in a second movement, that genomics became an obligatory passage point for conceiving large-scale analysis of racial stratification. Yet, going beyond current conceptions of ANT, I consider how tracing translation in and beyond the lab can expose a third multiplicity: the multiplicity of obligatory passage points in a given network. I argue that ANT, taken to its logical end, involves study of a plurality of mutually reinforcing actors that co-constitute one another and synergistically push collective agendas.

Towards an advanced mechanism to benefit from information systems in issuance of building permits

Issuing building permits process in Egypt faces many problems and difficulties. These difficulties are a result of many causes which maybe lack of experience in examining documents, the municipal personnel are not suitable to the tasks assigned to them, multiplicity of agencies taking approval on building permits, lack of databases and using traditional methods of accomplishing the work. In order to overcome most of these difficulties, the local government should utilize the new technologies because it has many capabilities and advantages. Geographic information system is a powerful technology that can support the municipalities in implementing their duties. Many municipalities today are using this powerful technology to improve the quality of decision-making, facilitate information sharing among officials and with the public, making municipal information and transactions easily accessible via the internet and make dramatic change in public presentations, reports and municipal web sites. In order to implement and manage the GIS system, some steps must be done to insure the success of the information system. The key factor in developing management strategies for the introduction, implementation, integration, and operation of GIS in any organization is to determine the appropriate role of GIS in the organization and to understand the implications of that role. This paper will discuss and demonstrate the importance of urban development control, the difficulties facing the process of issuing building permits, the importance of GIS in issuing permits and finally importance of developing strategies for the success of implementing and managing GIS in the organization.

‘In the eye of the beholder’: perceptions of local impact in English Health Action Zones

Contemporary efforts to promote population health improvement and to reduce inequalities in the UK are characterised by their complexity as they engage with a multiplicity of agencies and sectors. Additionally, the emphasis on promoting evidence-based practice has challenged evaluators tasked with collecting and interpreting evidence of impact in complex local health economies. National policy makers, local implementers and other stakeholders will have varying perspectives on impact and the Labour Government's centralising tendencies have acted to ‘crowd out’ local voices from the policy process. Drawing on the national evaluation of Health Action Zones (HAZ) this article ‘gives voice’ to local stakeholders and their perceptions of impact. Informed by a Theories of Change perspective, we explore HAZ interventions to articulate the nature of impact and its limits. We analyse the claims made by local HAZs with reference to the evidence base and examine their significance in the context of overall HAZ objectives. We conclude that local implementer perspectives are no less sophisticated than those at the policy centre of central government, but that they are informed by three important factors: the local context, a need to be pragmatic and the limited potency of evidence in the public policy system.

PERSPECTIVES ON MANAGEMENT CONTROL IN A MULTIPLE AGENCY, COMMUNITY SERVICE

This paper reports on an interpretive study of organisational control in a developing, community based, psychogeriatric service. The service was characterised by its complexity comprising a diversity of interest groups and a multiplicity of agencies. There were distinct differences in performance as perceived by the various interest, or stakeholder, groups; resulting in multiple control systems. Performance as measured by the management control system was found to be, at best, only partial. It was, therefore, of limited use in controlling existing service provision and developing new services. A case is made for recognition of these complexities when designing organisational control systems in such environments.

Decentralised planning in Zimbabwe: A review of provincial, urban and district development planning in post‐dependence Zimbabwe (post‐1980)

AbstractThe paper provides a detailed analysis of the nature and forms of decentralised planning existing in Zimbabwe since 1980. Most of them reflect a continuity from the colonial period with modifications to suit the new socio‐economic order. A detailed review is made of the powers that exist for planning and implementation, and also their limitations. The multiplicity of agencies has created problems, which has called for more co‐ordination particularly at provincial level. However, the conflict between territory and function is very evident, because in all cases it is planning either by sector ministries and parastatal agencies with limited territorial power, or in some cases relative autonomy exists for local planning and implementation. The conclusion to this paper is that there is a strong need for a central authority to co‐ordinate decentralised planning. This is a contradiction, if one sees decentralisation as the opposite of centralisation. Here we see the co‐existence of the two as inevitable because Zimbabwe is a unitary state which defines the limits of decentralisation.

Strategic or Tactical Air Traffic Control?

In an earlier paper I suggested that ATC could be depicted as a hierarchy of processes which differ from each other in the distance ahead in time at which they attempt to solve their problems. When the look-ahead time is very long (several weeks, say) we are usually concerned with the problems of traffic en-masse. These problems are here regarded as the province of Air Traffic Management (ATM) rather than of ATC, which is concerned in general with issuing commands to individual aircraft. It is possible that ATC may attempt to plan say, one hour ahead, but there will be a residue of problems, some of which may require action within seconds. The relatively long-term (or upstream) process is often called ‘strategic’ ATC and the short-term (or downstream) process ‘tactical’ ATC. The present paper is concerned with the problem of distributing the control effort between upstream and downstream activity. Other things being equal, upstream planning can offer a more efficient flight and a more orderly process, with less immediate pressures on pilot and controller. One drawback is that, in Western Europe at least where there are a multiplicity of agencies, the ATC authority may not have adequate data to attempt to plan more than about 15 minutes ahead.

SIDS: The Survivor as Victim

This article addresses itself to the death-grief constellation precipitated by the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) both in terms of the adjustment problems of the surviving family members and the challenges faced by concerned caregivers. Several features of SIDS create a particularly problematical aftermath for the survivors, including the sudden, unexpected nature of the death itself; the fact that its cause and prevention are unknown; the severing of the mother-infant bond; problems faced by surviving siblings; the multiplicity of agencies involved in the case-management process; and prevailing myths and stereotypes. Several problems for the concerned caregiver posed by SIDS are examined. Potential contributions of one caregiver—the funeral director — are explained.

University Training in Agricultural Economics for Foreign Students

HE increased role of the United States in the conduct of international affairs leaves few of our citizens untouched. The new position of our nation offers more challenges, more responsibilities and more opportunities to some, however, than to others. To the staff members of the American colleges and universities, and particularly to the workers engaged in the social sciences, the challenges loom large, indeed. But as we, as social scientists, work at our profession, we do so with a frustration brought on by the chaotic state of world affairs and the fact that our social organization and development lags scores of years behind our scientific and technological advances. In spite of these somewhat unsettling vexations-or perhaps, more accurately, in response to them-the American colleges and universities have committed themselves and have often provided the leadership in improving international relations with countries throughout the world, in marshalling human and technical resources to bear on socioeconomic problems in less developed nations, and in stimulating educational programs designed to upgrade man's relationship with man. This is being done in part through educating an increasing number of foreign students in our colleges and universities. I propose to spend a few minutes trying to set in perspective some of the considerations that concern us most in the management of a graduate program for foreign students in the area of agricultural economics. With the added number of students who come for training each year under their own auspices and under the auspices of a multiplicity of agencies, the problems have become further complexing and more intricate. To facilitate the discussion I further propose to group the problems, somewhat arbitrarily, to include (1) the selection of foreign students; (2) the orientation of foreign students to the American scene; (3) the nature of the graduate program; (4) special treatment of foreign students; and (5) the follow-up on the foreign students upon whom graduate degrees have been conferred.