David Olson – författare

In most countries, parliament has the constitutional mandate to both oversee and hold government to account. In light of the increased focus on good governance, academics and legislative strengthening practitioners are re-examining parliament's oversight function with a view to increasing public financial accountability, curbing corruption, and contributing to poverty reduction. This volume brings together research from many different perspectives and many different legislative settings worldwide. As the country case studies in section III demonstrate, the accountability mechanisms or oversight tools available to the legislature vary based on constitutionally defined powers of the legislature, institutional arrangements between the branches of government, divisions of authority between national, regional, and local governments, the degree of legitimacy conferred on the legislature, and the resources available to it. The budget process provides critical opportunities. Section II of this volume is devoted to examining budget oversight from the formulation and approval of the budget, to implementation and the ex post examination of the public accounts.Special attention is also paid to mechanisms to assist parliaments such as Public Accounts Committees and independent parliamentary budget offices. This title will be of interest to parliamentarians and parliamentary staff, legislative strengthening practitioners, and students of legislative development.

This functional new volume introduces professionals to the Circumplex Model of Family Systems--one of the most respected and widely used approaches of its kind in family studies. Internationally known scholar/practitioners in the marriage and family therapy field demonstrate how the model can be used to assess couple and family dynamics and plan treatment interventions. They extend the use of the Circumplex Model for treating problem families using a range of clinical interventions at both the family level and broader social system level--including specific treatment populations--sex offenders, juvenile delinquents, truants, and multi-problem families. Designed as a multidisciplinary resource, this authoritative and accurate volume will assist social workers, psychologists, pastoral counselors, family therapists, and other mental health professionals who work with individuals in a family treatment context.

This timely book demonstrates the value and relevance of family-oriented programs in dealing with problems experienced by children and adolescents. Experts provide salient guidelines and recommendations for involving the family in the diagnosis and treatment of problems. In addition to providing current reviews of research, this practical volume describes various skill-building programs and therapeutic interventions that can be used in a variety of program and treatment settings. Designed for helping professionals who work with children and youth, Family Perspectives in Child and Youth Services will be most valuable for practitioners in social work, psychology, psychiatry, and child development.

This functional new volume introduces professionals to the Circumplex Model of Family Systems--one of the most respected and widely used approaches of its kind in family studies. Internationally known scholar/practitioners in the marriage and family therapy field demonstrate how the model can be used to assess couple and family dynamics and plan treatment interventions. They extend the use of the Circumplex Model for treating problem families using a range of clinical interventions at both the family level and broader social system level--including specific treatment populations--sex offenders, juvenile delinquents, truants, and multi-problem families. Designed as a multidisciplinary resource, this authoritative and accurate volume will assist social workers, psychologists, pastoral counselors, family therapists, and other mental health professionals who work with individuals in a family treatment context.

In the past, vertical integration was a way to gain efficiency in supply chains. Today, vertical integration doesn't work as well because specialty organizations have developed to perform specific tasks very efficiently. Efficiency through supply chains is achieved today by linking specialists throughout the vertical business hierarchy. This sort of linkage is possible because of the technology that has developed which facilitates it, making today's supply chains both faster and more cost effective. Supply Chain Information Technology surveys the different systems that are used by businesses to achieve these efficiencies. The target market for this book is practitioners in the supply chain management field, one of the fastest growing fields in our economy. The rapid growth in computer technology provides supply chains with valuable tools to better coordinate and control their operations. This book describes how these systems provide supply chains with information system support. The design of these systems and the tasks they perform are demonstrated with the help of analytic techniques and models that are used in the book.

This book addresses project management in the context of information systems. It deals with general project management principles, with focus on the special characteristics of information systems. It is based on an earlier text , but shortened to focus on essential project management elements. This chapter has presented various statistics indicating endemic problems in completing information system projects on time, within budget, at designed functionality. While successful completion of an information systems project is a challenge, there are some things that can be done to improve the probability of project success. This book reviews a number of project management tools. These include developing organizational ability to work on projects, discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Sponsor expectations can be based upon better information if a good job of project selection is conducted, discussed in Chapter 4. Better systems analysis and design (Chapter 5) and project estimation (covered in Chapter 6) can assure that the proper skills are acquired to develop the project. Project management tools (Chapter 7) can assist project managers in coordinating the project effort, as can project management software such as Microsoft Project. Chapter 8 will return to the importance of critical success factors in the context of project implementation. Chapter 9 will discuss project control and termination.