Child Protection Work and Family Support Practice in Five Family Centres

Academic interest in the work of family centres in the United Kingdom has largely been concerned with categorising the work of such centres in terms of issues of childcare ideology, working practices and degree of service user control. Meanwhile, the re-focusing of child protection services in order to develop child welfare services has largely dominated childcare social work in recent years, with scant attention paid to the role of family centres in relation to this debate. This study is concerned with examining the perspectives of staff and service users in five 'client focussed' family centres in Northern Ireland in relation to how child protection issues are understood and dealt with. It was found that staff enter into negotiations with both referrers and service users to conceptually reframe child protection work as family support practice. This leads to the development of partnership relationships between staff and service users based upon mutual high regard. The work of such centres leaves them well placed to provide integrated services to children in need in line with current government priorities, but could leave some children vulnerable where child protection issues are not amenable to conceptual reframing along family support lines.

SLA-driven flexible bandwidth reservation negotiation schemes for QoS aware IP networks

We present a generic Service Level Agreement (SLA)-driven service provisioning architecture, which enables dynamic and flexible bandwidth reservation schemes on a per-user or a per-application basis. Various session level SLA negotiation schemes involving bandwidth allocation, service start time and service duration parameters are introduced and analysed. The results show that these negotiation schemes can be utilised for the benefits of both end user and network provide such as getting the highest individual SLA optimisation in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and price. A prototype based on an industrial agent platform has also been built to demonstrate the negotiation scenario and this is presented and discussed.

An agent-based control mechanism for WFQ in IP networks

This paper presents a new packet scheduling scheme called agent-based WFQ to control and maintain QoS parameters in virtual private networks (VPNs) within the confines of adaptive networks. Future networks are expected to be open heterogeneous environments consisting of more than one network operator. In this adaptive environment, agents act on behalf of users or third-party operators to obtain the best service for their clients and maintain those services through the modification of the scheduling scheme in routers and switches spanning the VPN. In agent-based WFQ, an agent on the router monitors the accumulated queuing delay for each service. In order to control and to keep the end-to-end delay within the bounds, the weights for services are adjusted dynamically by agents on the routers spanning the VPN. If there is an increase or decrease in queuing delay of a service, an agent on a downstream router informs the upstream routers to adjust the weights of their queues. This keeps the end-to-end delay of services within the specified bounds and offers better QoS compared to VPNs using static WFQ. This paper also describes the algorithm for agent-based WFQ, and presents simulation results. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Comparison of a centralised and distributed approach for a generic scheduling system

PEGS (Production and Environmental Generic Scheduler) is a generic production scheduler that produces good schedules over a wide range of problems. It is centralised, using search strategies with the Shifting Bottleneck algorithm. We have also developed an alternative distributed approach using software agents. In some cases this reduces run times by a factor of 10 or more. In most cases, the agent-based program also produces good solutions for published benchmark data, and the short run times make our program useful for a large range of problems. Test results show that the agents can produce schedules comparable to the best found so far for some benchmark datasets and actually better schedules than PEGS on our own random datasets. The flexibility that agents can provide for today's dynamic scheduling is also appealing. We suggest that in this sort of generic or commercial system, the agent-based approach is a good alternative.

Application of poly(ethylene glycol)-based aqueous biphasic systems as reaction and reactive extraction media

Poly(ethylene glycol)-based aqueous biphasic systems (PEG-ABSs) have been investigated as tunable reaction media, in the example presented here, to control the oxidation of cyclohexene to adipic acid with hydrogen peroxide. The production of adipic acid was found to increase from the monophasic to the biphasic regimes, was greatest at short tie-line lengths (close to the system's critical point), and demonstrates how control of the ABS media, through changes in system composition, PEG, salt, and tie-line length, can be used to readily tune and control reactivity and product isolation in these aqueous biphasic reactive extraction systems. Challenges in using this system, including possible oxidation reactions of the PEG-OH end groups, are also discussed.

An absorptive capacity interpretation of Six Sigma

Purpose – The Six Sigma approach to business improvement has emerged as a phenomenon in both the practitioner and academic literature with potential for achieving increased competitiveness and contributing. However, there is a lack of critical reviews covering both theory and practice. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically review the literature of Six Sigma using a consistent theoretical perspective, namely absorptive capacity.

Design/methodology/approach – The literature from peer-reviewed journals has been critically reviewed using the absorptive capacity framework and dimensions of acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation.

Findings – There is evidence of emerging theoretical underpinning in relation to Six Sigma borrowing from an eclectic range of organisational theories. However, this theoretical development lags behind practice in the area. The development of Six Sigma in practice is expanding mainly through more rigorous studies and applications in service-based environments (profit and not for profit). The absorptive capacity framework is found to be a useful overarching framework within which to situate existing theoretical and practice studies.

Research limitations/implications – Agendas for further research from the critical review, in relation to both theory and practice, have been established in relation to each dimension of the absorptive capacity framework.

Practical implications – The paper shows that Six Sigma is both a strategic and operational issue and that focussing solely on define, measure, analyse, improve control-based projects can limit the strategic effectiveness of the approach within organisations.

Originality/value – Despite the increasing volume of Six Sigma literature and organisational applications, there is a paucity of critical reviews which cover both theory and practice and which suggest research agendas derived from such reviews.

Thermochemistry of Ionic Liquid-Catalyzed Reactions: Theoretical and Experimental Study of the Beckmann Rearrangement-Kinetic or Thermodynamic Control?

A thermodynamic analysis of the experimental conditions of the Beckmann rearrangement reaction of oximes into amides has been undertaken to examine whether the reaction is under thermodynamic or kinetic control. To answer this question, the thermodynamic properties of the typical Beckmann rearrangement reactions in the ideal gaseous state-cyclohexanone oxime to caprolactam and 2-butanone oxime to N-methylpropanarnide-were studied by using the quantum mechanical method. Gibbs energy and equilibrium constants of the Beckmann rearrangement have been assessed in the gaseous and the liquid phases. Results of the thermodynamic analysis have shown that Beckmann rearrange ments are kinetically controlled. Thus, a search for possible active ionic liquid based catalysts for the mild reaction conditions has been performed.

Kinetic and thermodynamic investigations on arsenic adsorption onto dolomitic sorbents

Arsenic and its compounds are toxic pollutants for the environment and all living organisms. At present, there is considerable interest in studying new sorbent materials for the removal of arsenic from aqueous solutions. This work discusses the feasibility of arsenic uptake onto dolomite which is considered to be a potential inexpensive adsorbent. Thermodynamic and kinetic experiments were undertaken to assess the capacity and rate of As uptake onto dolomite. Experimental data were mathematically described using adsorption kinetic models, namely pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models. The arsenic removal was found to be dependent on the dosage of dolomite, adsorbent particle size and the presence of various anions. Thermodynamic results indicate that the adsorption follows an exothermic chemisorption process. The experimental data indicate successful removal of As(V) ion from aqueous solution indicating that dolomite be used as an inexpensive treatment process. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A numerical investigation of the flow structures and losses for turbulent flow in 90 degrees elbow bends

Computational fluid dynamic modelling was carried out on a series of pipe bends having R/r values of 1.3, 5, and 20, with the purpose of determining the accuracy of numerical models in predicting pressure loss data from which to inform one-dimensional loss models. Four separate turbulence models were studied: the standard k-epsilon model, realizable k-epsilon model, k-omega model, and a Reynolds stress model (RSM). The results are presented for each bend in the form of upstream and downstream pressure profiles, pressure distributions along the inner and outer walls, detailed pressure and velocity fields as well as overall loss values. In each case, measured data were presented to evaluate the predictive ability of each model. The RSM was found to perform the best, producing accurate pressure loss data for bends with R/r values of 5 and 20. For the tightest bend with an R/r value of 1.3, however, predictions were significantly worse due to the presence of flow separation, stronger pressure gradients, and high streamline curvature.

Phase-Transfer Catalysis in Segmented Flow in a Microchannel: Fluidic Control of Selectivity and Productivity

Precise control over the interfacial area of aqueous and organic slugs in segmented flow in a microchannel reactor provides an attractive means to optimize the yield and productivity of a phase-transfer-catalyzed reaction. Herein, we report the selective alkylation of phenylacetonitrile to the monoalkylated product in a microchannel of 250-mu m internal diameter operated in a continuous and solvent-free manner in the slug-flow regime. The conversion of phenylacetonitrile increased from 40% to 99% as a result of a 97% larger slug surface-to-volume ratio when the volumetric aqueous-to-organic phase flow ratio was raised from 1.0 to 6.1 at the same residence time. The larger surface-to-volume ratio significantly promoted catalyst phase transfer but decreased selectivity because of the simultaneous increase of the rate of the consecutive reaction to the dialkylated product. There exists all Optimum flow ratio with a maximum productivity. Conversion and selectivity in the microchannel reactor were both found to be significantly larger than in a stirred reactor.