scholarly journals Screen, Ration and Churn: Demand Management and the Crisis in Children’s Social Care

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 868-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Hood ◽  
Allie Goldacre ◽  
Sarah Gorin ◽  
Paul Bywaters
Keyword(s):  
Social Care ◽  
Demand Management ◽  
Area Deprivation ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Trends Over Time ◽  
Single Data

Abstract This article presents findings from a quantitative study of the national data-sets for statutory children’s social care services in England. The aim of the study was to examine how demand management varied in local authorities with differing levels of area deprivation. About 152 local authorities census returns and other statistical indicators covering the period 2014–2017 were combined into a single data-set. Statistical analysis was undertaken to explore trends over time and correlations between indicators that might indicate patterns in the way demand was managed. Findings showed that high levels of deprivation have continued to be strongly linked to high levels of activity and that local authorities have continued to increase their use of protective interventions relative to referrals. Evidence was found for three interconnected mechanisms, through which local authorities tended to manage demand for services: screening, rationing and workforce churn. The article describes these mechanisms and comments on their significance for the current crisis of demand in the sector.

scholarly journals Ownership Variation in Violated Regulations and National Care Standards: Evidence From Social Care Providers

2021 ◽  
pp. 089976402110014
Author(s):  
Anders M. Bach-Mortensen ◽  
Ani Movsisyan
Keyword(s):  
Social Care ◽  
Negative Binomial ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Research Gap

Social care services are increasingly provisioned in quasi-markets in which for-profit, public, and third sector providers compete for contracts. Existing research has investigated the implications of this development by analyzing ownership variation in latent outcomes such as quality, but little is known about whether ownership predicts variation in more concrete outcomes, such as violation types. To address this research gap, we coded publicly available inspection reports of social care providers regulated by the Care Inspectorate in Scotland and created a novel data set enabling analysis of ownership variation in violations of (a) regulations, and (b) national care standards over an entire inspection year ( n = 4,178). Using negative binomial and logistic regression models, we find that for-profit providers are more likely to violate non-enforceable outcomes (national care standards) relative to other ownership types. We did not identify a statistically significant difference between for-profit and third sector providers with regard to enforceable outcomes (regulations).

scholarly journals Analysing public service outsourcing: The value of a regulatory perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 958-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Cunningham ◽  
Philip James
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Employment Conditions ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Regulatory Perspective ◽  
Longitudinal Case Studies ◽  
Voluntary Organisations

This article draws on findings from two longitudinal case studies of voluntary organisations engaged in delivering social care services via purchaser–provider relations with local authorities. The study focuses on changes to contractual relations, employment conditions in provider organisations and service quality. The article argues the influence of the market on these changes can only be adequately comprehended by rooting the analysis in an understanding of the way in which surrounding regulatory frameworks shape its structure and operation. In doing so, it reveals how in an era of shifting market conditions characterised by greater competition and dramatic local authority cuts, a ‘soft’ regulatory framework offers little support to partnership relations between voluntary organisations and local authorities. Instead, the regulatory environment undermines financial security among voluntary organisations, degrades employment conditions in them and raises concerns regarding their service quality.

Disparities Across Time: Exploring Absenteeism Patterns between Cohorts of Students with Disabilities

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Michael A. Gottfried ◽  
Vi-Nhuan Le ◽  
J. Jacob Kirksey
Keyword(s):  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Chronic Absenteeism ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Full Day Kindergarten ◽  
Effective Interventions ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Single Data ◽  
Over Time

Background It is of grave concern that kindergartners are missing more school than students in any other year of elementary school; therefore, documenting which students are absent and for how long is of upmost importance. Yet, doing so for students with disabilities (SWDs) has received little attention. This study addresses this gap by examining two cohorts of SWDs, separated by more than a decade, to document changes in attendance patterns. Research Questions First, for SWDs, has the number of school days missed or chronic absenteeism rates changed over time? Second, how are changes in the number of school days missed and chronic absenteeism rates related to changes in academic emphasis, presence of teacher aides, SWD-specific teacher training, and preschool participation? Subjects This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), a nationally representative data set of children in kindergarten. We rely on both ECLS data sets— the kindergarten classes of 1998–1999 and 2010–2011. Measures were identical in both data sets, making it feasible to compare children across the two cohorts. Given identical measures, we combined the data sets into a single data set with an indicator for being in the older cohort. Research Design This study examined two sets of outcomes: The first was number of days absent, and the second was likelihood of being chronically absent. These outcomes were regressed on a measure for being in the older cohort (our key measure for changes over time) and numerous control variables. The error term was clustered by classroom. Findings We found that SWDs are absent more often now than they were a decade earlier, and this growth in absenteeism was larger than what students without disabilities experienced. Absenteeism among SWDs was higher for those enrolled in full-day kindergarten, although having attended center-based care mitigates this disparity over time. Implications are discussed. Conclusions Our study calls for additional attention and supports to combat the increasing rates of absenteeism for SWDs over time. Understanding contextual shifts and trends in rates of absenteeism for SWDs in kindergarten is pertinent to crafting effective interventions and research geared toward supporting the academic and social needs of these students.

US academic libraries' staffing and expenditure trends (1996–2016)

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (4/5) ◽  
pp. 247-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Starr Hoffman ◽  
Samantha Godbey
Keyword(s):  
Academic Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Size Category ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Education Statistics ◽  
Trends Over Time ◽  
Doctoral Institutions ◽  
Over Time

PurposeThis paper explores trends over time in library staffing and staffing expenditures among two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States.Design/methodology/approachResearchers merged and analyzed data from 1996 to 2016 from the National Center for Education Statistics for over 3,500 libraries at postsecondary institutions. This study is primarily descriptive in nature and addresses the research questions: How do staffing trends in academic libraries over this period of time relate to Carnegie classification and institution size? How do trends in library staffing expenditures over this period of time correspond to these same variables?FindingsAcross all institutions, on average, total library staff decreased from 1998 to 2012. Numbers of librarians declined at master’s and doctoral institutions between 1998 and 2016. Numbers of students per librarian increased over time in each Carnegie and size category. Average inflation-adjusted staffing expenditures have remained steady for master's, baccalaureate and associate's institutions. Salaries as a percent of library budget decreased only among doctoral institutions and institutions with 20,000 or more students.Originality/valueThis is a valuable study of trends over time, which has been difficult without downloading and merging separate data sets from multiple government sources. As a result, few studies have taken such an approach to this data. Consequently, institutions and libraries are making decisions about resource allocation based on only a fraction of the available data. Academic libraries can use this study and the resulting data set to benchmark key staffing characteristics.

scholarly journals Probabilistic Harmonization and Annotation of Single-cell Transcriptomics Data with Deep Generative Models

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenling Xu ◽  
Romain Lopez ◽  
Edouard Mehlman ◽  
Jeffrey Regier ◽  
Michael I. Jordan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Probabilistic Approach ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Generative Models ◽  
Marker Genes ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Cell State ◽  
Transcriptomics Data ◽  
Single Data

AbstractAs single-cell transcriptomics becomes a mainstream technology, the natural next step is to integrate the accumulating data in order to achieve a common ontology of cell types and states. However, owing to various nuisance factors of variation, it is not straightforward how to compare gene expression levels across data sets and how to automatically assign cell type labels in a new data set based on existing annotations. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that our previously developed method, scVI, provides an effective and fully probabilistic approach for joint representation and analysis of cohorts of single-cell RNA-seq data sets, while accounting for uncertainty caused by biological and measurement noise. We also introduce single-cell ANnotation using Variational Inference (scANVI), a semi-supervised variant of scVI designed to leverage any available cell state annotations — for instance when only one data set in a cohort is annotated, or when only a few cells in a single data set can be labeled using marker genes. We demonstrate that scVI and scANVI compare favorably to the existing methods for data integration and cell state annotation in terms of accuracy, scalability, and adaptability to challenging settings such as a hierarchical structure of cell state labels. We further show that different from existing methods, scVI and scANVI represent the integrated datasets with a single generative model that can be directly used for any probabilistic decision making task, using differential expression as our case study. scVI and scANVI are available as open source software and can be readily used to facilitate cell state annotation and help ensure consistency and reproducibility across studies.

Volunteers Supporting Older People in Formal Care Settings in England

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 923-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shereen Hussein ◽  
Jill Manthorpe
Keyword(s):  
Economic Status ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Local Area ◽  
Area Deprivation ◽  
Formal Care ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Big Society ◽  
Care Services ◽  
The Uk

In the UK context of financial austerity and the promotion of the social responsibility through the concept of the “Big Society,” volunteers are becoming a more important part of the labor workforce. This is particularly so in the long-term care (LTC) sector, where both shortages of staff and demands for support are particularly high. This article investigate the levels and profile of contribution of volunteers in the LTC sector using a large national data set, National Minimum Data Set for Social Care, linked to local area levels of rurality and socio-economic status. The analysis shows that volunteer activity in formal care services varies between sectors and service types, with no strong relationship between local area deprivation, unemployment levels, and levels of volunteering. However, some significant association was found with level of rurality. The contribution of volunteers is most evident in provision of counseling, support, advocacy, and advice.

scholarly journals Benchmark products for land evapotranspiration: LandFlux-EVAL multi-data set synthesis

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 3707-3720 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Mueller ◽  
M. Hirschi ◽  
C. Jimenez ◽  
P. Ciais ◽  
P. A. Dirmeyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Individual Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Annual Variations ◽  
Input Variables ◽  
Global Increase ◽  
Single Data ◽  
The Individual

Abstract. Land evapotranspiration (ET) estimates are available from several global data sets. Here, monthly global land ET synthesis products, merged from these individual data sets over the time periods 1989–1995 (7 yr) and 1989–2005 (17 yr), are presented. The merged synthesis products over the shorter period are based on a total of 40 distinct data sets while those over the longer period are based on a total of 14 data sets. In the individual data sets, ET is derived from satellite and/or in situ observations (diagnostic data sets) or calculated via land-surface models (LSMs) driven with observations-based forcing or output from atmospheric reanalyses. Statistics for four merged synthesis products are provided, one including all data sets and three including only data sets from one category each (diagnostic, LSMs, and reanalyses). The multi-annual variations of ET in the merged synthesis products display realistic responses. They are also consistent with previous findings of a global increase in ET between 1989 and 1997 (0.13 mm yr−2 in our merged product) followed by a significant decrease in this trend (−0.18 mm yr−2), although these trends are relatively small compared to the uncertainty of absolute ET values. The global mean ET from the merged synthesis products (based on all data sets) is 493 mm yr−1 (1.35 mm d−1) for both the 1989–1995 and 1989–2005 products, which is relatively low compared to previously published estimates. We estimate global runoff (precipitation minus ET) to 263 mm yr−1 (34 406 km3 yr−1) for a total land area of 130 922 000 km2. Precipitation, being an important driving factor and input to most simulated ET data sets, presents uncertainties between single data sets as large as those in the ET estimates. In order to reduce uncertainties in current ET products, improving the accuracy of the input variables, especially precipitation, as well as the parameterizations of ET, are crucial.

scholarly journals Long-wavelength Mesh&Collect native SAD phasing from microcrystals

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Cianci ◽  
Max Nanao ◽  
Thomas R. Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Radiation Sensitivity ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Experimental Planning ◽  
Manual Intervention ◽  
Partial Data ◽  
Small Crystals ◽  
Anomalous Signal ◽  
Single Data

Harnessing the anomalous signal from macromolecular crystals with volumes of less than 10 000 µm3 for native phasing requires careful experimental planning. The type of anomalous scatterers that are naturally present in the sample, such as sulfur, phosphorus and calcium, will dictate the beam energy required and determine the level of radiation sensitivity, while the crystal size will dictate the beam size and the sample-mounting technique, in turn indicating the specifications of a suitable beamline. On the EMBL beamline P13 at PETRA III, Mesh&Collect data collection from concanavalin A microcrystals with linear dimensions of ∼20 µm or less using an accordingly sized microbeam at a wavelength of 1.892 Å (6.551 keV, close to the Mn edge at 6.549 keV) increases the expected Bijvoet ratio to 2.1% from an expected 0.7% at 12.6 keV (Se K edge), thus allowing experimental phase determination using the anomalous signal from naturally present Mn2+ and Ca2+ ions. Dozens of crystals were harvested and flash-cryocooled in micro-meshes, rapidly screened for diffraction (less than a minute per loop) and then used for serial Mesh&Collect collection of about 298 partial data sets (10° of crystal rotation per sample). The partial data sets were integrated and scaled. A genetic algorithm for combining partial data sets was used to select those to be merged into a single data set. This final data set showed high completeness, high multiplicity and sufficient anomalous signal to locate the anomalous scatterers, and provided phasing information which allowed complete auto-tracing of the polypeptide chain. To allow the complete experiment to run in less than 2 h, a practically acceptable time frame, the diffractometer and detector had to run together with limited manual intervention. The combination of several cutting-edge components allowed accurate anomalous signal to be measured from small crystals.

scholarly journals Cohort Profile: Children in Need Census (CIN) records of children referred for social care support in England (Pre-Print)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Emmott ◽  
Matthew Jay ◽  
Jenny Woodman
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Incidence Data ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Administrative Dataset ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Care Support

Purpose: CIN is a case-based administrative dataset on children referred to social care services in England. CIN includes information on the ‘needs’ of children, and whether they received social care support. Local and national government bodies in England currently use CIN for evaluation purposes. Data is accessible to researchers under certain conditions, allowing researchers to investigate health implications of adverse childhood experiences. However, CIN suffers from lack of metadata, meaning it can be challenging for researchers to process and interpret data, particularly if researchers are unfamiliar with the English children’s social care system. To address this issue, we provide the background to CIN and describe the available data from 2008 to 2016.Participants: CIN is derived from case records held by English Local Authorities on all children referred to children’s social care for a ‘needs assessment,’ regardless of whether they are eventually assessed as ‘in need of social care support.’ Local Authorities submit these case records to the UK Department for Education for collation. CIN holds information on an estimated 2.76 million children from October 2008 to March 2016. Since 2013/14, just under 900,000 children have been recorded in the CIN annually, equivalent to around 8% of children in England (annual prevalence). Approximately 650,000 children enter or renter the dataset each year, equivalent to 5% of children in England (annual incidence). Data summary: Of the estimated 2.76 million children in the data, 50% are male and 47% female. 45% are referred to children’s social care services due to abuse or neglect. 10.7% of children in CIN went onto a child protection plan, meaning they were judged to be (at risk of) suffering significant harm.Future Plans: CIN data collection is annual and ongoing. Data from the most recent census period typically becomes available for researchers in the following Spring.

scholarly journals Domain-Based Benchmark Experiments: Exploratory and Inferential Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel J. A. Eugster ◽  
Torsten Hothorn ◽  
Friedrich Leisch
Keyword(s):  
Learning Algorithm ◽  
Learning Algorithms ◽  
Joint Analysis ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Complete Collection ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Enterprise Application ◽  
Empirical Performance ◽  
Formal Statistical Analysis ◽  
Single Data

Benchmark experiments are the method of choice to compare learning algorithms empirically. For collections of data sets, the empirical performance distributions of a set of learning algorithms are estimated, compared, and ordered. Usually this is done for each data set separately. The present manuscript extends this single data set-based approach to a joint analysis for the complete collection, the so called problem domain. This enablesto decide which algorithms to deploy in a specific application or to compare newly developed algorithms with well-known algorithms on established problem domains.Specialized visualization methods allow for easy exploration of huge amounts of benchmark data. Furthermore, we take the benchmark experiment design into account and use mixed-effects models to provide a formal statistical analysis. Two domain-based benchmark experiments demonstrate our methods: the UCI domain as a well-known domain when one is developing a new algorithm; and the Grasshopper domain as a domain where we want to find the  best learning algorithm for a prediction component in an enterprise application software system.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document