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Taiwan has been practicing The National Health Insurance (NHI) more than ten years. Under the regulations of the NHI policy, almost all hospitals have encountered challenges and difficulties in their business operation. Therefore, figuring out how to move on from these obstacles and to create more profitable opportunities have become the primary tasks for the hospitals. Now, facing a global economic downturn, while the conventional and electronic industries are in recession, the healthcare industry in Kaohsiung City will need to take more actions in order to survive such a crisis and create new opportunities. Taiwan¡¦s neighboring countries, such as Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and India have been actively opening up their healthcare industry markets and earning considerable amount of money from foreign patients, creating many job opportunities. What Kaohsiung City could learn from these countries¡¦ successful experiences in order to benefit and help develop its own healthcare industry is the focus of this dissertation. Since 2005, a three-year project ¡V healthcare tourism, has been carrying out. It was practiced in Kenting only for half a year, and there are many reasons resulted in the short life of this project. Years later, the present Ma Ying-Jiu government vows to redevelop the healthcare industry. However, the key to the success of such a project is whether the government has the resolution to clear up unnecessary, restraining regulations and laws, and to set up responsible organizations in order to help the development of the healthcare industry. After the Three Linkages ¡V direct postal, trade, and transportation ¡V between Taiwan and the Mainland China were reconnected at 2008 December 15, the relation between the two straits is less intense. The Kaohsiung City Major, Miss Chen Ju, as the major of the host city of the World Game 2009, went to Beijing and Shanghai to promote this event. This trip has political and economical significances, which continue impacting on the relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China and were reflected on several important Democratic Progressive Party members¡¦ recent, frequent visits of China. How these phenomena would influence on the development of the healthcare industry in Kaohsiung City is still under observation. This dissertation uses Dr. Wan Ming-Sheng¡¦s Consultation Framework of Integrated Public Affairs Administration as the main theory, through in-depth interviews with governors and professional experts in the fields of healthcare and travelling, this research is able to conclude the following practicable strategies, regarding their value, practicability and support, for the development of the healthcare industry of Kaohsiung City: 1. Now it is a good timing for Kaohsiung City to develop its healthcare industry. The city should use all the advantages it possesses and take initiative moves. 2. Beauty and Healthcare Tourism Promotion Association of Kaohsiung City is already established. The association is advised to be promoted and led by non-governmental directors. 3. The healthcare tourism should list Hong Kong and Macao people as primary sale targets; the secondary should be the Mainland Chinese and Chinese people from other countries. 4. Necessary measures should be carried out in order to prevent malign sale competitions which would bring down the quality of the healthcare service in Kaohsiung City. 5. Kaohsiung City should take the advantage of hosting the World Game 2009 to promote its strength in healthcare service, such as and particularly health checks. 6. The government should face and respond with an active attitude towards the requests from the healthcare industry and release the industry from unhelpful, restraining laws. Healthcare can be and is a business. 7. The central government should take other Asian countries¡¦ successful experiences as models, and sets up cross-section supervisory sectors responsible mainly for directing issues regarding healthcare tourism.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-89).

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-68).

Thesis (M.A.)--Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1998. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-89).

The aim of this thesis is to examine whether law reforms in the detailed planning process can be an aspect that gets in conflict with the citizens rights to participate in the Swedish planning through dialogue, and how five chosen municipalities are working with citizen participation. To be able to answer the aim of the thesis a literature study and five semi-structured interviews was performed in purpose to get wide-ranging information from municipal officials working with detailed planning handling.   Law changes that aims to make the detailed planning process more efficient has been implemented partly to satisfy the needs of dwellings since the detailed planning process among master builders seems to be slow and inefficient, which to the them means higher costs. The requirement on having a detailed planning program was taken away when the new planning law was adopted year 2011. The planning program was including a moment of citizen dialogue. The case studied municipalities have not been affected in this law change arguing that it’s still possible to bring a program if needed. 1st of January 2015 new procedures were implemented in the planning process in purpose to make the process more efficient, where most of the respondents argue that the process don’t have to be more efficient because of the reform, but that the room for citizen dialogue will probably be smaller. The best way of dialogue among municipalities is to include citizens early in the communication process. Nevertheless there are divided meanings whether how there is enough room for dialogue.

The purposes of this research were to determine the rate at which school psychologists engage in parent training/education with the parents of children with chronic behavior problems and to determine the relationships between school psychologists’ demographic variables, professional practice, training, and perception of barriers and their engagement in such activities. These variables have been found to be related to types of service delivery practices and were hypothesized to also be related to the rate and type of engagement in parent training/education activities by school psychologists. Five hundred school psychologists were randomly sampled from the membership of the National Association of School Psychologists and mailed a survey. One-hundred-fifteen (23%) of the targeted school psychologists returned a usable survey. Five school psychologists indicated that they engaged in parent training/education at least weekly and volunteered to engage in a phone interview with the researcher. The phone interview was conducted in order to gather more specific information regarding facilitators of the school psychologists’ engagement in parent training/education with the parents of children with chronic behavior problems. Data were analyzed using descriptive, correlational, linear, and qualitative methods. Results indicated that school psychologists’ rate of engagement in parent training interventions with the parents of children with chronic behavior problems occurred on average less than once per semester. The data also suggested that intensity of training and perception of barriers were most strongly related to school psychologists’ engagement in parent training/education activities. Other variables including school psychologists’ perception of available time, problem solving skills, and ability to communicate with school-based administrators also were indicated as impactful on school psychologists’ engagement in parent training/education activities. These findings have important implications for school psychology training programs. Specifically, school psychology training programs may wish to examine the intensity of training provided to trainees in not only parent training/education but also in time management, problem solving, and consultation.

In this thesis I develop a critical theory of public participation and deliberation in post-communist Romania. Primarily, this theory is developed from a critical assessment of two intermediate-level Romanian institutions: the deliberative system that has formed to debate the authorisation of a proposed gold mining project in Roșia Montana, Romania and the legitimacy claims of the series of hybrid forums that were convened as part of that project's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The hybrid forum legitimacy claims were assessed based on a standard of hybrid forum legitimacy developed in this thesis from deliberative democracy theory and practice. Grounded in new institutionalism theory, this thesis describes the historical and contemporary socio-economic conditions that have shaped Romanian public participation and deliberation.

A program for the training of graduate student consultants in behavioral interviewing skills is presented. The initial interview of behavioral consultation, problem identification, was taught. The training program involved a videotape interview between a consultant and consultee in which appropriate verbalizations specific to the problem identification interview were modeled and/or specific problem identification objectives were narrated. Sixty graduate student consultants were trained using either or both of these techniques. The consultants later had the opportunity to role-play a problem identification interview to demonstrate the consultation skills acquired through observation of the modeling and/or the narrated instructions. This role-played interview was audio-recorded and the verbalized statements coded on the Consultation Analysis Record, a technique in which independent verbalized statements are coded on four categories. These coded statements were statistically analyzed in order to determine the effectiveness of the training program in training the problem identification interview. The training program was evaluated using a multivariate analysis of variance design. Results of the study indicated that verbal skills specific to problem identification interview were acquired when modeled training alone was used. No skills acquisition resulted in the instruction only or the modeling plus instruction training conditions. The implications of this study for the training of psychologists in behavioral consultation are discussed. This investigation lent support for the use of modeling as a training technique and the Consultation Analysis Record as a systematic method of the behavioral assessment of interviewing skills.

The evidence clearly indicates that, not only is the learning process affected by many factors including students’ mental health and social-emotional learning (SEL), but also zero tolerance methods of managing students’ problem behaviors are largely ineffective. This dissertation introduces a suggested model for supporting educators’ efforts in the implementation and sustainability of SEL programs using a response-to-intervention (RTI) model for educators. Additionally, the current study examined the effects of conjoint behavioral consultation (CBC) on (a) the role of teachers’ classroom practices, (b) the home-school partnership, and (c) the relationship these two factors have on young children’s challenging behaviors. Participants in this study were four triads, each consisting of one pre-k teacher, one preschool student with challenging behaviors, and one set of preschool students’ parents from a suburban county in the southeast. Three dependent variables were measured in this study: (1) teachers’ target behaviors were measured using direct observation; (2) students’ target behaviors were measured using direct observation (i.e., daily by teachers and parents) and ratings on the Social Skills Improvement System Rating Scale (SSIS-RS; Elliott & Gresham, 2008); and (3) the impact of the intervention on the home-school relationship was measured both pre- and post-intervention using the Parent-Teacher Relationship Scale - II (PTRS-II; Vickers & Minke, 1995). The independent variable was a multi-component intervention package that incorporated the four stages of CBC (Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2010) with a social skills intervention plan. A relationship was established between the intervention and teachers’ use of select positive behavior support (PBS) strategies. Furthermore, results indicated that the intervention package was effective in improving all students’ challenging behaviors in the school setting and for three of the four students challenging behaviors in the home setting. Finally, results from the PTRS-II indicated that parents and teachers’ perceptions of the home-school relationship actually declined. However, this outcome was unexpected because the anecdotal reactions from the participants throughout this study were very positive. Ratings on the social validity of the intervention as measured by the Treatment Evaluation Inventory – Short Form (TEI-SF; Kelley, Heffer, Gresham, & Elliott, 1989) were high.