Fractured families, fractured systems: overcoming the silo mentality in family justice work

This article comments on the detrimental effects of inter-parental conflict, hostile parenting, and acrimonious divorce proceedings in terms of child outcomes, adult mental health, and quantifiable costs to the taxpayer. It refers to the growing concern that fragmentation within the family justice system works against supporting families through change. It draws upon the research conducted over many years by Tavistock Relationships in understanding the connection between family structures and professional systems, and suggests inter-agency collaboration as one way of mitigating obstacles. It puts forward the idea of developing cross-discipline consultative groups as a way of integrating services within the family justice system, and presents an example where this model has been informally trialled with some success.

MULTI-FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE SCALES OF EVALUATING KNOWLEDGE BASED ON A FUZZY-PROBABILITY APPROACH

Teachers always face problems when assessing the competence level of test participants (whether students, undergraduates, etc.) in both moral and psychological fields as well as methodological. This raises important questions on the creation of professional systems, which have mathematical models set forth for their vital foundational path. The current working method in the creation of mathematical models for evaluating the competency of test participants is based on a fuzzy logic approach using both the explicit and implicit knowledge of highly qualified experts. One can see the realisation of this method in the example of Englishlanguage instruction. A comparison of two common assessment scales for knowledge of the tested has been carried out – the «fivepoint » standard adopted in Russia (or required, actually) and the converted sevenpoint ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) rating scale which is based on percentage. This study has shown that teachers cannot effectively assess the participants’ competency, neither on individual topics nor on the course as a whole, due to the narrowness of the «fivepoint » scale.

Protection of Children in Difficulty in China during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study investigated the resilience of the Chinese child protection system in responding to the special needs of children in difficulty under the specific circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study applied qualitative document analysis of child protection administrative documents, in-depth interviews with 13 child protection professionals, and an in-depth case study of 14 children living in difficulty, complemented by relevant information available in the media. The results indicate that there are good policies in China’s child protection services but the organizational and functional fragmentation complicates implementation, suggesting a need for the development of bottom-up practices. The essential conclusion supported by these results is that the child protection system should be regarded and developed as a systematic project combining the legal, policymaking, and professional systems of child welfare services as well as governmental and non-governmental forces. As the COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness of the need to develop the field of child protection holistically as an integrated system in terms of social sustainability in China, an international literature-based comparison indicates that the pandemic has also raised similar political awareness in other countries.

OneBookShelf Community Content Programs and the Polish RPG Fandom

The paper analyses the almost complete absence of Polish RPG designers from OneBookShelf’s community content programs for various tabletop RPG systems, proposing an explanation for this absence based on the development of the RPG fandom in Poland. A part of the argument is concerned with a relatively weak position of Dungeons & Dragons in Poland compared to the English market and with the Polish RPG players’ lack of interest in the market of digital materials for tabletop RPGs. The main hypothesis, however, connects the Polish absence from community content programs with how the long absence of professional systems and the permanently small market of commercial RPGs in Poland might have increased the intensity of prosumption of RPGs among Polish fans but simultaneously limited their chance to gain skills and knowledge necessary to publish and market the results of this prosumption on a professional or semi-professional level. Statements of Jan Sielicki – the only Polish RPG designer who published numerous and successful supplements under community content programs – are quoted to reinforce this hypothesis and show how Sielicki gained the necessary skills outside of the Polish RPG fandom.

A Novel CAD Tool for Electric Educational Diagrams

Computer-aided design (CAD) is a technological revolution, very powerful and with large applicability to problem solving. It is essential in many different disciplines ranging from architecture to education, medicine, physics, or gaming. In this work, we propose a novel CAD tool, called CADDi, to assist in the design of electric diagrams in the educational context. We are applying the theory of formal languages to create WDLang, an easy-to-use, highly expressive, unequivocal, and correct programming language for designing electric circuits. This programming language is the cornerstone of CADDi, which automatically generates the equivalent ladder diagram (explains the circuit operation) to the programmed circuit, offering additional features that allow analysis of its functionality in an interactive way. It also offers a graphical interface to directly design ladder diagrams, or to modify the automatically generated ones. The existing electrical CAD tools are either very simple, e.g., for creating good-looking diagrams with no functionality, or too complex, for professional systems design. CADDi is extremely useful for learning purposes. It assists users on how to generate ladder diagrams, and on understanding the behavior of electrical circuits. Additionally, it serves as an assessment tool for self-evaluation in the translation from wiring diagrams to ladder ones. In order to make CADDi highly accessible, it was implemented as a web page.

Motion capture systems for jump analysis

This article presents several methods used in motion capture to measure jumps. The traditional systems to acquire jump information are force plates, but they are very expensive to most people. Amateur sports enthusiasts who want to improve their performance, do not have enough money to spend in professional systems ($+/-20.000$EUR). The price reduction of electronic devices, specifically the inertial measurement units (IMU), are generating new methods of motion capture. In this article we present the state-of the-art motion capture systems for this purpose, from the classical force plates to latest released IMUs. Experiments show that the IMU is equally valid for measuring vertical jump.