Rules and resources: a structuration approach to understanding the coordination of childrens`s inpatient health care

Aim. This paper presents findings from a multi-method study exploring the process of care coordination in children's inpatient health care.

Background. Existing work on care coordination is typified by 'black-box' type studies that measure inputs to and outcomes of care coordination roles and practices, without addressing the process of coordination.

Method. Using questionnaires, interviews and observation to collect data in multiple sites in the United Kingdom and Denmark between 1999 and 2005, the study gathered the perceptions of staff and compared these with observed practice. Giddens' structuration theory was used to provide an analytical and explanatory framework.

Findings. Current care coordination practice is diverse and inconsistent. It involves a wide range of clinical and non-clinical staff, many of whom perceive a lack of clarity about who should perform specific coordination activities. Staff draw upon a wide range of different material and non-material resources in coordinating care, the use of which is governed by largely tacit and informal rules.

Conclusions. Care coordination can be usefully conceptualized as a 'structurated' process – one that is continually produced and reproduced by staff using rules and resources to 'instantiate' or bring about care coordination through action. Potentially negative implications of this are manifested in diversity and inconsistency in care coordination practice. However, positive aspects such as the opportunity this provides to tailor care to the needs of the individual patient can be realized.

A platform for dynamic organization of agents in agent-based systems

In most agent-based systems, different middle agents are employed to increase their flexibility. However, there are still three issues remain unsolved. In centralized architecture with single middle agent, the middle agent itself is a bottleneck and suffers from single point failure; middle agents in distributed architecture lack capability of dynamic organization of agents; The reliability is not strong because of the single point failure and lack of effective architecture. We introduce a platform with ring architectural model to solve all above problems. In the platform, multiple middle agents are dynamically supported for solving the first problem. For solving the second problem, middle agents dynamically manage the registration and cancellation of service provider agents and application teams, each of which includes a set of closely interacting requester agents to complete an independent task. Redundancy middle agent technique is proposed for solving the third problem. All middle agents are of the feature of proliferation and self-cancellation according to the sensory inputs from their environment. For organizing the middle agents effectively, a ring architectural model is proposed. We demonstrate the applicability of the platform by its application and present experimental evidence that the platform is flexible and robust.

Diversities in the professional organization of accountants : a comparability study with insights from the Chinese experience

While spatial, historical and cultural variations across different countries have prevented any generalisation to be made of the professionalization process, various analytical themes can be said to have emerged in scholarly inquires relating to the professional organization of accountants. In highlighting these broad themes, this study argues that they have all revolved around one important relationship-that of the state and the accounting profession. The dynamics and the fluid nature of this intriguing relationship is further captured and contrasted in this study through an investigation of an episode of intra-professional conflict during the professionalization experience of the Chinese accountants.

Reconstructing the south : how commercial myths compete for identity value through the ideological shaping of popular memories and countermemories

This study explicates the coconstitutive relationships between commercial myth- making and popular memory that arise through myth market competitions for identity value. We develop a genealogical analysis of the representational strategies and ideological rationales that two prominent New South mythmakers use to shape popular memories in relation to their competitive goals and to efface counter- memories that contradict their mythologized representations. We then derive a conceptual model that highlights competitive, historical, and ideological influences on commercial mythmaking and their transformative effects on popular memory, which have not been addressed by prior theorizations of the meaning transfer process.

Children and university architecture students working together : a pedagogical model of children’s participation in architectural design

Increasing efforts have been made to engage children in the design of the built environment, and several participatory models have been developed. The aim of this paper is to propose a pedagogical model for children's genuine participation in architectural design, developed in an architectural education context. According to this pedagogical model, children (primary school students) and youth (university architecture students) work in teams to develop the architectural design proposals. This model was developed through a joint educational project between Deakin University and Wales Street Primary School (both institutions are based in Victoria, Australia). In the four-week duration of the project, first year architecture students worked with Grade 3 and 4 primary school children to design a school playground. The final product of the project was a 1:20 scale model of a playground, which was installed and presented at the end of the fourth week. The project received positive feedback from all the participants, including children, architecture students, university lecturers, primary school teachers and architects. In addition, it achieved a high level of children's genuine participation. This model can be refined and applied in new situations, and potentially with other primary schools working with Deakin University.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s multiplatform projects : industrial logics of children’s content provision in the digital television era

This paper traces the development of children’s multiplatform commissioning at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in the context of the digitalisation of Australian television. Whilst recent scholarship has focussed on ‘post-broadcast’ or ‘second-shift’ industrial practices, designed to engage view(s)ers with proprietary media brands, less attention has been focussed on children’s and young adults’ television in a public service context. Further, although multiplatform projects in the United States and Britain have been the subject of considerable analysis, less work has attempted to contextualise cultural production in smaller media markets. The paper explores two recent multiplatform projects through textual analysis, empirical research (consisting of interviews with key industry personnel) and an investigation of recent policy documents. The authors argue that the ABC’s mixed diet of children’s programming, featuring an educative or social developmental agenda, is complemented by its appeals to audience ‘participation’, with the Corporation maintaining public service values alongside the need to expand audience reach and the legitimacy of its brand. It finds that the ABC’s historical platform infrastructure, across radio, television and online, have allowed it to move beyond a market failure model to exploit multiplatform synergies competitively in the distribution of Australian children’s content to audiences on-demand.