“I don’t like to be told that I view a student with a deficit mindset”: Why it Matters that Disability Studies in Education Continues to Grow

In this article I use personal narrative to provide a commentary on the value of Disability Studies in Education (DSE). Through a mixture of recollections, observations, and descriptions, along with engagement with scholarship in the fields of both special education and DSE, I highlight ways in which I and other scholars have utilized the latter in our daily professional practices. First, I describe the point in my educational career when I came into contact with Disability Studies (DS). Second, I share the beginnings of how DSE came into existence through the work of a coalition of critical special educators. Third, I provide instances of DSE in action, highlighting a recent in-service presentation and other examples. Fourth, I explain why DSE is needed to protect and develop conceptualizations of disability outside of the traditional special education realm. Fifth, I illustrate the benefits of DSE’s interdisciplinary nature. Finally, I assert that DSE provides a visionary lens for improving educational practices for students with disabilities. In closing, I advocate for DSE’s continued growth in helping change deficit-based understandings of disability that continue to pervade education and society.

Impact of a Pharmacist-Driven Protocol to Improve Guideline-Concordant Prescribing of Diabetes Medications in Patients With Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease: A Pilot Study

Purpose: To determine whether a pharmacist-driven protocol improves guideline-concordant prescribing of diabetes medications in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Methods: A retrospective pre- and post-intervention study was conducted at a university-based family medicine clinic. A pharmacist-driven protocol was implemented which involved the creation of an algorithm recommending specific diabetes medications in patients with ASCVD. An in-service presentation reviewing the algorithm and process for referral of eligible patients to an appointment with a clinical pharmacist was delivered to providers. Clinical pharmacist appointments focus was on improving diabetes management and initiating cardiovascular risk-reducing medications if appropriate. Results: A total of 234 patients were screened, and 108 met inclusion criteria. Upon completion of patient outreach, 34% were scheduled with a pharmacist. Forty-three percent of patients (16 of 37) attended the appointment. Of those, 31% were initiated on an evidence-based regimen indicated for diabetes and ASCVD. In comparing pre- to post-implementation of the pharmacist-driven protocol, the rate of guideline-concordant prescribing increased by 48% (3.8% to 5.6%). Conclusion: Implementation of a pharmacist-driven protocol can increase guideline-concordant prescribing. However, further exploration of patient- and system-level barriers is necessary to implement such a program more broadly.

Empowerment in Tourism

Empowerment is an approach that provides employees to participate in the management, control the processes, and decide about the problems by taking initiatives. Employee empowerment is important to develop service quality, respond faster to customer needs, ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty, and provide competitive advantage to the organization. In this context in the tourism sector where service presentation and consumption take place in a direct relationship with the customer, employees should be empowered. In this chapter, definition and importance of employee empowerment, employee empowerment approaches, concepts about the employee empowerment, employee empowerment elements, methods that enable employee empowerment, employee empowerment in tourism organizations, and the benefits of employee empowerment are explained by literature review.

Financial Control and Ratio Analysis in Local Governments

Local governments have to use their sources in the most efficient way against increasing service demands. Local governments’ incomes are to be collected regularly and in accordance with the conditions, and their expenses are to be spent in the most efficient way. These depend on the healthy operation of budget, accounting, and financial control systems related to them. Progress of the system shall be controlled in local governments, and this data shall be analyzed and presented to the higher authorities as reports. Today, only official reports take place in local governments, and there is no analysis related to control. This causes the deterioration of the balance of income and expenditure and affects service presentation and service quality in a negative way. Financial structure of local governments is the most important issue that determines the quality and aspect of the services provided to the region. The efficiency of local qualified incomes, transfers of local management, and size of the resources caused of borrowing play an important role in forming the financial structure (Kurtulus, 2006, p. 28). Therefore, management and financial analysis ratios are needed. Due to these ratios, establishing a control system can be used in management. In this study, financial resources in public management are analyzed, ratios related to these financial resources are included, and a suggestion for financial implementation for local governments is promoted.

Presentation Oriented Web Services

Web services introduced the means for integrating and sharing business processes via the Internet. WSRP’s (WSRP specification version 1, 2003) goal is to extend the integration further by providing a framework for sharing Web service presentation components. WSRP specification formulated a standard protocol, which enables all content and application providers to create Web services, generate their presentation faces as HTML fragments, and offer them to the consumers to be plugged into their local portals.

A Dynamic User Centric Framework for Enhancing eServices Effectiveness Aiming at Mass Customization

Mass customization should be more than just configuring a specific component (hardware or software), but should be seen as the co-design of an entire system, including services, experiences and human satisfaction at the individual as well as at the community level. The main objective of this chapter is to introduce a framework, smartTag, for the dynamic reconstruction of Web content based on human factors. Human factors and users’ characteristics play the most important role during the entire design and implementation of the framework which has the inherent ability to interact with its environment and the user and transparently adapt its behaviour using intelligent techniques, reaching high levels of usability, user satisfaction, effectiveness and quality of service presentation. The initial results of the evaluation have proven that the proposed framework do not degrade the efficiency (in terms of speed and accuracy) during the Web content adaptation process as well as increases users’ satisfaction and efficiency of information processing (both in terms of accuracy and task completion time), while users navigating in the personalized condition rather than the original one.