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Authors propose a systems model for foster care cost accountability and management that monitors inputs, work processes, and outputs on a continuous basis. Six months of cost performance data for five separate foster care units are presented and analyzed using activitybased costing techniques. Resource consumption patterns, service and activity cost behavior, and repeated measures of unit of service costs are presented and compared. Variances in service costs over time are analyzed at multiple levels and used to understand variances in output costs. Activity-based costing tools, statistical quality control techniques, and total quality management form the basis of the cost accountability and management model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present a field study of activity-based management (ABM) applied to a foster care intake unit in a public social services agency. Data were collected on resources, activities, and outputs, yielding an empirical model that has the potential for explaining variances in outcomes produced by service technologies (direct practice and administration), thus informing the question of how effective they are in achieving intended outcomes. This information enables the unit continuously to improve service effectiveness and sharpens its competitive edge in the volatile human service marketplace. The authors review contextual challenges that can impede effective implementation of ABM in social services and offer strategies for meeting these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study compares the perceived influences of several factors, each representing a popular perspective, on priority setting in hospital social work departments: (1) leader characteristics of the director; (2) organizational characteristics of the department and hospital; and (3) the preferences of constituency groups. The authors surveyed the views of directors to ascertain influences on their allocation of resources. We find that organizational factors and the preferences of constituents are the strongest determinants of departmental priorities, with leader attributes playing a less influential role. An interesting discovery is that each factor's influence varies depending on the nature of the priority area. We conclude that all three explanations for how performance priorities are shaped --a political model, a leader influence model and an institutional model--find support, The authors interpret and assess the significance of these findings to the practice of social work administration in hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a replication study, fifty-four social work managers from a local metropolitan department of social services respond to the 'Survey of Social Workers in Management Roles' describing how often they perform activities related to twelve dimensions of management. Their responses are compared to those obtained from an earlier national sample of 184 social work managers. A multivariate analysis of variance, controlling for management level, experience, and the interaction of level and sample, finds no significant difference between samples with respect to the frequency with which managers perform activities related to eleven of the twelve management dimensions. On a practical level, there appear to be no real differences between the two groups on any management dimension. These results provide greater confidence in the stability of the measure and in its findings but much work still needs to be done to establish the validity of the instrument. Further research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid and unprecedented changes in our modern society have created extremely turbulent environments for nonprofit human service organizations. These changes threaten to transform the very nature of our business in ways difficult to predict and prepare for. The author examines the collective views of 21 purposely sampled executive directors in the city of Baltimore, Maryland on the future of the nonprofit human services sector. In 1 hour face-to-face interviews, subjects were asked to respond to three questions. What major trends will impact the nonprofit sector in the near future? What potential impact do you see these trends having on the nonprofit sector? What strategies would you recommend that executive directors take today to ensure success of their organization in the future? Narrative responses to each question were aggregated, organized into dominant views, and summarized. Subjects identified a host of social, political, economic, and technological trends that will have major effects on the future of the nonprofit sector. Subjects recommend a variety of tactics for helping an agency respond successfully to these forces. These tactics emphasize three critical areas of administration: planning management and leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is often used to treat patients with significant coronary heart disease (CHD). To date, multiple longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have examined the association between depression and CABG outcomes. Although this relationship is well established, the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, we compared three markers of autonomic nervous system (ANS) function in four groups of patients: 1) Patients with coronary heart disease and depression (CHD/Dep), 2) Patients without CHD but with depression (NonCHD/Dep), 3) Patients with CHD but without depression (CHD/NonDep), and 4) Patients without CHD and depression (NonCHD/NonDep). Second, we investigated the impact of depression and autonomic nervous system activity on CABG outcomes. Methods Patients were screened to determine whether they met some of the study's inclusion or exclusion criteria. ANS function (i.e., heart rate, heart rate variability, and plasma norepinephrine levels) were measured. Chi-square and one-way analysis of variance were performed to evaluate group differences across demographic, medical variables, and indicators of ANS function. Logistic regression and multiple regression analyses were used to assess impact of depression and autonomic nervous system activity on CABG outcomes. Results The results of the study provide some support to suggest that depressed patients with CHD have greater ANS dysregulation compared to those with only CHD or depression. Furthermore, independent predictors of in-hospital length of stay and non-routine discharge included having a diagnosis of depression and CHD, elevated heart rate, and low heart rate variability. Conclusions The current study presents evidence to support the hypothesis that ANS dysregulation might be one of the underlying mechanisms that links depression to cardiovascular CABG surgery outcomes. Thus, future studies should focus on developing and testing interventions that targets modifying ANS dysregulation, which may lead to improved patient outcomes.

Texas Gulf is one of the 18 regional sites that is part of the USDA-ARS Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network and focuses on cropland and integrated grazing land research in Central Texas, addressing challenges posed by soil characteristics, climate variability, and urbanization. This paper provides brief site descriptions of the two Cropland Common Experiments being conducted in the Texas Gulf LTAR region, emphasizing conservation tillage practices and precision agriculture techniques. The plot-scale study is located in Temple, TX, at the USDA-ARS Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory and examines conventional tillage, strip tillage, and no tillage practices. The field-scale study, located in Riesel, TX, at the USDA-ARS Riesel Watersheds, assesses the impact of no tillage, cover crops, fertility management, adaptive management, and precision conservation on crop yield, profitability, and environmental footprint. Key measurements include soil and plant analyses, greenhouse gas fluxes, runoff water quantity and quality, and field operations recorded with precision agriculture equipment. Despite challenges posed by urban encroachment, future research aims to incorporate new technologies, such as unmanned ground vehicles, to enhance sustainability and productivity of the agricultural landscape. These experiments provide valuable insights for stakeholders, contributing to the development of sustainable agricultural practices tailored to the unique challenges within the Texas Gulf LTAR region., (© 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Environmental Quality published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.)

Gap-filling eddy covariance flux data using quantitative approaches has increased over the past decade. Numerous methods have been proposed previously, including look-up table approaches, parametric methods, process-based models, and machine learning. Particularly, the REddyProc package from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and ONEFlux package from AmeriFlux have been widely used in many studies. However, there is no consensus regarding the optimal model and feature selection method that could be used for predicting different flux targets (Net Ecosystem Exchange, NEE; or Evapotranspiration -ET), due to the limited systematic comparative research based on the identical site-data. Here, we compared NEE and ET gap-filling/prediction performance of the least-square-based linear model, artificial neural network, random forest (RF), and support vector machine (SVM) using data obtained from four major row-crop and forage agroecosystems located in the subtropical or the climate-transition zones in the US. Additionally, we tested the impacts of different training-testing data partitioning settings, including a 10-fold time-series sequential (10FTS), a 10-fold cross validation (CV) routine with single data point (10FCV), daily (10FCVD), weekly (10FCVW) and monthly (10FCVM) gap length, and a 7/14-day flanking window (FW) approach; and implemented a novel Sliced Inverse Regression-based Recursive Feature Elimination algorithm (SIRRFE). We benchmarked the model performance against REddyProc and ONEFlux-produced results. Our results indicated that accurate NEE and ET prediction models could be systematically constructed using SVM/RF and only a few top informative features. The gap-filling performance of ONEFlux is generally satisfactory (R 2  = 0.39-0.71), but results from REddyProc could be very limited or even unreliable in many cases (R 2  = 0.01-0.67). Overall, SIRRFE-refined SVM models yielded excellent results for predicting NEE (R 2  = 0.46-0.92) and ET (R 2  = 0.74-0.91). Finally, the performance of various models was greatly affected by the types of ecosystem, predicting targets, and training algorithms; but was insensitive towards training-testing partitioning. Our research provided more insights into constructing novel gap-filling models and understanding the underlying drivers affecting boundary layer carbon/water fluxes on an ecosystem level., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Research has linked trauma-sequelae, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, to aggression. However, not all who experience a trauma become violent, suggesting non-trauma factors, such as emotion dysregulation, influence aggression expression and if confirmed, may influence treatment approaches. Aggression can be considered a multifaceted construct with Impulsive Aggression (IA) as emotional, reactive, and uncontrolled and Premeditated Aggression (PA) as deliberate, planned, and instrumental. We hypothesized that parceling apart IA and PA may further refine predictors of aggression in the context of trauma exposure. We tested this hypothesis in undergraduate women ( N = 208) who completed trauma, emotion, and aggression measures. Path analysis indicated that Borderline Features, including emotion dysregulation, mediated the relationship between trauma exposure and IA and PA. The finding extends clinical literature by providing evidence that emotion dysregulation influences both IA and PA in a non-clinical sample, while clinical sample research shows emotion dysregulation more specifically mediated the relationship between trauma and IA. Factors responsible for these differences are discussed., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest The authors report no financial conflicts of interest.

Primary Objective: To examine initial Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score and its relationship with later cerebral atrophy in children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) using Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (QMRI) at 4 months post-injury. It was hypothesized that a lower GCS score would predict later generalized atrophy. As a guide in assessing paediatric TBI patients, the probability of developing chronic cerebral atrophy was determined based on the initial GCS score., Methods and Procedures: The probability model used data from 45 paediatric patients (mean age = 13.6) with mild-to-severe TBI and 41 paediatric (mean age = 12.4) orthopaedically-injured children., Results: This study found a 24% increase in the odds of developing an abnormal ventricle-to-brain ratio (VBR) and a 27% increase in the odds of developing reduced white matter percentage on neuroimaging with each numerical drop in GCS score. Logistic regression models with cut-offs determined by normative QMRI data confirmed that a lower initial GCS score predicts later atrophy., Conclusion: GCS is a commonly used measure of injury severity. It has proven to be a prognostic indicator of cognitive recovery and functional outcome and is also predictive of later parenchymal change.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed in 39 right-handed children to examine structural hemispheric differences and the impact of age, socioeconomic status, and sex on these differences. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were smaller in the left than in the right temporal, prefrontal, anterior internal capsular and the thalamic regions, and fractional anisotropy (FA) values were larger in the left than in the right internal capsule, thalamus, and cingulate. Significant region-by-sex interactions disclosed that the relation of DTI asymmetries to performance depended on sex including the relation of temporal lobes to reading comprehension and the relation of frontal lobes to solving applied mathematical problems.

The study explicates a competency-based model of contemporary social work management practice and compares this model with frameworks derived from earlier studies. Using a purposive sample of 184 social work managers throughout the country, an exploratory factor analysis yielded twelve sets of competencies required of today's social work manager. A comparison of the present model to earlier management frameworks reveals that substantive changes in the nature, scope, complexity, and priorities assigned to management competencies and skills have transformed the role of the social work manager over the last decade. Implications for social work manager education are reviewed and future research directions are proposed.