scholarly journals A number is worth more than a thousand pictures: The case of designers’ cynical resistance through quantification

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulises Navarro Aguiar
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Quantitative Approach ◽  
Professional Expertise ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
Engineering Organization ◽  
Strategic Project

This article draws on an ethnographic investigation of product development at an engineering organization to examine the struggle faced by designers in justifying design proposals when cooperating with engineers and managers. Frustrated by the priority given to numbers over other modes of evaluation traditionally used in design, designers in this case developed and mobilized their own evaluation device to quantitatively prove the validity and worth of their work. This quasi-parodic form of evaluation enables designers to criticize and influence strategic project decisions. At the same time, this cynical act of resistance paradoxically endorses the quantitative approach and undermines designers’ own professional expertise as a valid way of conceiving worth, which ultimately renders this move more indeterminate than what a distinction between resistance and conformity denotes. Overall, the study adds to our understanding of how modes and principles of justification typically embraced by professional groups can be unsettled by attempts to protect them. In doing so, it brings to light the ambivalent nature of resistance through a cynical embrace of quantification.

scholarly journals Social pedagogy-informed residential child care

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eeva Timonen-Kallio ◽  
Juha Hämäläinen
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Professional Expertise ◽  
Integrated Framework ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
Social Pedagogy ◽  
Residential Child Care ◽  
Recent Debate

This paper discusses the nature of the professional expertise needed in residential child care (RCC) in light of recent debate on social pedagogy. Focusing on the question of what kind of expertise is introduced in this debate, the paper deals with the contribution of social pedagogy to the professional development and professional competences of the RCC field, as well as the characteristics of professional knowhow in particular. The paper discusses also the research on how RCC expertise is constructed among RCC workers and how they demonstrate their expertise to other professional groups. The final aim is to outline a social pedagogy-informed profile of professional RCC competences. The purpose is to stimulate and enable multidisciplinary reflections about different kinds of expertise and shared responsibilities, towards developing an integrated framework for RCCs. Moreover, the paper emphasises the relevance of social pedagogy as a subject for training to promote RCC professionalism.

A Quantitative Approach to Medieval Population Change

1964 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Urban Population ◽  
Population Change ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Basic Factor ◽  
Quantitative Approach ◽  
Grocery Stores ◽  
Equal Group ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
The City ◽  
Barber Shops

Geographers and city planners, endeavoring to explain or foretell changes in urban population, sometimes use an approach called basic-nonbasic. A basic factor is one which brings in money from outside of the city and which usually sells its products beyond the city limits. The nonbasic factor furnishes services and supplies to the city. Thus a factory would normally be a basic factor, while grocery stores, barber shops, and similar institutions, together with most professional groups, would be nonbasic. A factory employing a thousand workmen would add to the city not merely the workmen's families but about an equal group of nonbasic families, perhaps a total of six or seven thousand persons. This concept is a very useful one in modern society and is worth testing for its possibilities for medieval settlements.

A Quantitative Approach for Designing Multiple Product Platforms for an Evolving Portfolio of Products

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Conner Seepersad ◽  
Farrokh Mistree ◽  
Janet K. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Product Development ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Quantitative Approach ◽  
Decision Support Model ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Absorption Chillers ◽  
Associated Production ◽  
Multiple Product

Product variety can be provided more efficiently and effectively by creating families of products based on product platforms. One of the major advantages of the development of product platforms is the facilitation of an overall product development strategy, and an important factor in product development is the evolution of a family of products, including addition and retirement of products as well as changing demand and associated production quantities. In this paper, we present a quantitative approach for designing multiple product platforms for an evolving family of products. The approach is based on the utility-based compromise Decision Support Problem—a multi-objective decision support model with an objective function derived from utility theory. With this approach, a designer can model and consider multiple factors that influence the embodiment of product platforms as well as non-deterministic evolution of a portfolio of products serviced by the product platforms. We apply this approach to an example study of a family of absorption chillers, designed for a variable marketplace. Our emphasis is on the approach rather than the results, per se.

Facing a Patient Who Seeks Help After a Suicide Attempt

Crisis ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inês Areal Rothes ◽  
Margarida Rangel Henriques ◽  
Joana Barreiros Leal ◽  
Marina Serra Lemos
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Suicidal Patient ◽  
Emotional Difficulties ◽  
Specific Training ◽  
Patient Suicide ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
Professional Characteristics ◽  
Suicidal Patients

Background: Although intervention with suicidal patients is one of the hardest tasks in clinical practice, little is known about health professionals’ perceptions about the difficulties of working with suicidal patients. Aims: The aims of this study were to: (1) describe the difficulties of professionals facing a suicidal patient; (2) analyze the differences in difficulties according to the sociodemographic and professional characteristics of the health professionals; and (3) identify the health professionals’ perceived skills and thoughts on the need for training in suicide. Method: A self-report questionnaire developed for this purpose was filled out by 196 health professionals. Exploratory principal components analyses were used. Results: Four factors were found: technical difficulties; emotional difficulties; relational and communicational difficulties; and family-approaching and logistic difficulties. Differences were found between professionals who had or did not have training in suicide, between professional groups, and between the number of patient suicide attempts. Sixty percent of the participants reported a personal need for training and 85% thought it was fundamental to implement training plans targeted at health professionals. Conclusion: Specific training is fundamental. Experiential and active methodologies should be used and technical, relational, and emotional questions must be included in the training syllabus.

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