Recent progress in the states in the field of mental health.

Mode of access: Internet.

State organization and finance in the field of mental health research;

Mode of access: Internet.

Systematic integration of human factors in the specification of requirements for new railway technologies

Engineering design processes are necessary to attain the requisite standards of integrity for high-assurance safety-related systems. Additionally, human factors design initiatives can provide critical insights that parameterise their development. Unfortunately, the popular perception of human factors as a “forced marriage” between engineering and psychology often provokes views where the ‘human factor’ is perceived as a threat to systems design. Some popular performance-based standards for developing safety-related systems advocate identifying and managing human factors throughout the system lifecycle. However, they also have a tendency to fall short in their guidance on the application of human factors methods and tools, let alone how the outputs generated can be integrated in to various stages of the design process. This case study describes a project that converged engineering with human factors to develop a safety argument for new low-cost railway level crossing technology for system-wide implementation in Australia. The paper enjoins the perspectives of a software engineer and cognitive psychologist and their involvement in the project over two years of collaborative work to develop a safety argument for low-cost level crossing technology. Safety and reliability requirements were informed by applying human factors analytical tools that supported the evaluation and quantification of human reliability where users interfaced with the technology. The project team was confronted with significant challenges in cross-disciplinary engagement, particularly with the complexities of dealing with incongruences in disciplinary language. They were also encouraged to think ‘outside the box’ as to how users of a system interpreted system states and ehaviour. Importantly, some of these states, while considered safe within the boundary of the constituent systems that implemented safety-related functions, could actually lead the users to engage in deviant behaviour. Psychology explained how user compliance could be eroded to levels that effectively undermined levels of risk reduction afforded by systems. Linking the engineering and psychology disciplines intuitively, overall safety performance was improved by introducing technical requirements and making design decisions that minimized the system states and behaviours that led to user deviancy. As a commentary on the utility of transdisciplinary collaboration for technical specification, the processes used to bridge the two disciplines are conceptualised in a graphical model.

Soviet-American Cooperative Research on Marine Mammals. Volume 1- Pinnipeds: Under Project V.6. Marine Mammals, of the US-USSR Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection

Some 25 to 30 yr ago, when we as students were beginning our respective careers and were developing for the first time our awareness of marine mammals in the waters separating western North America from eastern Asia, we had visions of eventually bridging the communication gap which existed between our two countries at that time. Each of us was anxious to obtain information on the distribution, biology, and ecological relations of "our" seals and walruses on "the other side," beyond our respective political boundari~s where we were not permitted to go to study them. We were concerned that the resource management practices on the other side of the Bering and Chukchi Seas, implemented in isolation, on a purely unilateral basis, might endanger the species which we had come to know and were striving to conserve. At once apparent to both of us was the need for free exchange of biological information between our two countries and, ultimately, joint management of our shared resources. In a small way, we and others made some initial efforts to generate that exchange by personal correspondence and through vocal interchange at the annual meetings of the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission. By the enabling Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection, reached between our two countries in 1972, our earlier visions at last came true. Since that time, within the framework of the Marine Mammal Project under Area V of that Agreement, we and our colleagues have forged a strong bond of professional accord and respect, in an atmosphere of free intercommunication and mutual understanding. The strength and utility of this arrangement from the beginning of our joint research are reflected in the reports contained in this, the first compendium of our work. The need for a series of such a compendia became apparent to us in 1976, and its implementation was agreed on by the regular meeting of the Project in La Jolla, Calif., in January 1977. Obviously, the preparation and publication of this first volume has been excessively delayed, in part by continuing political distrust between our governments but mainly by increasing demands placed on the time of the contributors. In this period of growing environmental concern in both countries, we and our colleagues have been totally immersed in other tasks and have experienced great difficulty in drawing together the works presented here. Much of the support for doing so was provided by the State of Alaska, through funding for Organized Research at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. For its ultimate completion in publishable form we wish to thank Helen Stockholm, Director of Publications, Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska, and her staff, especially Ruth Hand, and the numerous referees narned herein who gave willingly oftheir time to review each ofthe manuscripts critically and to provide a high measure of professionalism to the final product. (PDF file contains 110 pages.)

Performance in managing marine resources in the Bay of Bengal

The eight member countries were assessed as to their sustainable use of resources within their Exclusive Economic Zones(EEZs). Indicators included; investment in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), impact of trawling, mariculture sustainability, protection of seabirds and marine mammals,ecosystem impacts, economic health and levels of reporting and compliance.

Reflections about physiotherapist professional performance in the field of physical activity

The physiotherapist professional activities, in the beginning were focused only in the clinical field, nowadays it has many different action fields including Physical Activity. Physical activity can be viewed from two dimensions: one biological, which is defined as any activity which requires energy expenditure involving the combined action of multiple systems; on the other side social, understood as a human activity concerning subjectivity conditions influenced by the environment where the individual and the community are developed. Given these dimensions as well as national and international benchmarks this paper’s objective is to present a series of reflections that the authors have done regarding the physiotherapist professional performance in the field of physical activity and the large possibilities derived from their practice in this field.

Change in Managers’ Conceptions of Human Resources in Organisations : Outcomes of an Intervention

Managers’ conceptions of the importance of human resources are essential for creating ‘attractive workplaces’. This paper examines an intervention method aimed at creating insight among managers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) concerning the potential of human resources. The intervention method is called Focus Group Attractive Work (FGAW) and was conducted at eight enterprises in Sweden. Based on the analysis, it is concluded that the intervention method seems to be thought-provoking and to facilitate changes in managers’ conceptions of the importance of human resources, albeit to different degrees. 

The role of evaluation in decision-making in the management of health services

The management of health services is a complex administrative practice due to the breadth of the field of health and the need to reconcile individual, corporate and collective interests that are not always convergent. In this context, the evaluation needs to have specific characteristics in order to fulfill its role. The scope of this study was to establish the characteristics that the evaluation for the management of health services should have to contribute to decision-making. Usefulness, opportunity, feasibility, reliability, objectivity and directionality represent the set of principles upon which the evaluation should be based. Evaluations should lead to decisions that guarantee not only their efficiency and effectiveness but also their implementation. The evaluation process should ensure that decisions involve all stakeholders in order to render the implementation of decisions feasible, and take into account the health needs of the population and the goals set for the services. The scope of this article is to elicit a debate among different stakeholders in the evaluation in the hope that it can contribute to the reflection on the real usefulness of evaluations in which the political component in management has been increasingly prevalent.

Making research works visible and stimulating a research milieu in the field of social work - The European Resource Centre for Social Work Research (CERTS)

The project to create a European Resource Centre for Social Work Research (CERTS) has been agreed in December 2001 by the General Research Board of the European Commission within the framework programme 'Accompanying Measures for the improving the Human research potential and the Socio Economic Knowledge Base'.

The two modes of an athlete: Dual-process theories in the field of sport

The goal of the present article is to introduce dual-process theories – in particular the default-interventionist model – as an overarching framework for attention-related research in sports. Dual-process theories propose that two different types of processing guide human behavior. Type 1 processing is independent of available working memory capacity (WMC), whereas Type 2 processing depends on available working memory capacity. We review the latest theoretical developments on dual-process theories and present evidence for the validity of dual-process theories from various domains. We demonstrate how existing sport psychology findings can be integrated within the dual-process framework. We illustrate how future sport psychology research might benefit from adopting the dual-process framework as a meta-theoretical framework by arguing that the complex interplay between Type 1 and Type 2 processing has to be taken into account in order to gain a more complete understanding of the dynamic nature of attentional processing during sport performance at varying levels of expertise. Finally, we demonstrate that sport psychology applications might benefit from the dual-process perspective as well: dual-process theories are able to predict which behaviors can be more successfully executed when relying on Type 1 processing and which behaviors benefit from Type 2 processing.

A Multiagent system model which suggests solutions to fuzzy incidents in the field of telecommunications

This article presents the model of a multi-agent system (SMAF), which objectives are the input of fuzzy incidents as the human experts express them with different severities degrees and the further search and suggestion of solutions. The solutions will be later confirm or not by the users. This model was designed, implemented and tested in the telecommunications field, with heterogeneous agents in a cooperative model. In the design, different abstract levels where considered, according to the agents? objectives, their ways to carry it out and the environment in which they act. Each agent is modeled with different spectrum of the knowledge base

The human frame and the laws of health,

Title within ornamental border.

Managing human resources in the Middle-East

Managing Human Resources in the Middle East provides the reader with an understanding of the dynamics of HRM in this important region. Systematic analysis highlights the main factors and variables dictating HRM policies and practices within each country. Diverse and unique cultural, institutional and business environment factors which play a significant role in determining HRM systems in the region are also elaborated upon. The text moves from a general overview of HRM in the Middle-East to an exploration of the current status, role and strategic importance of the HR function in a wide-range of country-specific chapters, before highlighting the emerging HRM models and future challenges for research, policy and practice. This text is invaluable reading for academics, students and practitioners alike.