社会科学研究中质与量的方法选择

质性研究和量化研究是社会科学研究中的两种重要方法。质性研究遵循人文一解释的基本逻辑．是用文字描述归纳社会现象；量化研究遵循科学一实证的基本逻辑，以数字符号诠释社会现象，具有继承自然科学研究方法的传统和社会科学研究方法的特点。在争论定量、定性二者的差异的进程中，不断实现优势互补则是社会科学研究方法发展的主流趋势。     

High Stakes: Time Poverty,Testing, and the Children of the Working Poor

Sociological interest in the implementation of policy generally focuses on the ways a single stream of policy creates a set of measurable consequences either for parents or children. This article takes an ethnographic approach to the study of conflicting policy mandates that collide in the lives of families moving from welfare to work at the same time that schools are implementing high stakes tests and the end of social promotion. We show that these two policies make contradictory demands on parents, to the potential detriment of children. Ethnographic research reveals the ways in which multiple and incompatible forms of policy impact poor families, putting them in the unhappy position of choosing between economic stability or mobility and children's educational performance.     

江苏高等教育国际化战略探讨

基于战略管理理论,探讨了科学规划江苏高等教育国际化问题,具体包括规划的总体指导思想、规划内容、规划重点以及规划实施保障等方面,并提出了科学规划与促进高等教育国际化的特色发展策略、平台发展策略、信息化发展策略和资源发展策略。     

当下中国县域政治权力生态恶化之探析——基于现代国家构建的视角

当下中国部分县域地区政治权力生态恶化的客观现实,引起了国内学界的高度关注,学者们在对现实状况进行分析的基础上运用各种社会科学的方法,尝试从不同的角度去关注县域政治权力生态恶化问题产生的根源.在大量的解释模型中,现代国家构建是一个重要的研究视角,认此为切入点,探析县域政治权力生态恶化的深层次原因,结果表明:国家权力在某些公共领域的不适当退出,以及国家能力的不足,导致了县域政治的衰败和紊乱.     

Disease risk and fertility: evidence from the HIV/AIDS pandemic

A fundamental question about human behavior is whether fertility responds to disease risk. The standard economic theory of household fertility decision-making generates ambiguous predictions, and the response has large implications for human welfare. We examine the fertility response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic using national household survey data from 14 sub-Saharan African countries. Instrumental variable (IV) estimates using distance to the origin of the pandemic suggest that HIV/AIDS has increased the total fertility rate (TFR) and the number of surviving children. These results rekindle the debate about the fertility response to disease risk, particularly the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and highlight the question of whether the HIV/AIDS pandemic has reduced GDP per capita.     

Detecting structural change in linear models

Consider a sequence of independent observations which change their marginal distribution at most once somewhere in the sequence and one is not certain where the change has occurred. One would be interested in detecting the change and determining the two distributions which would describe the sequence. On the other hand if no change had occurred, one would want to know the common distribution of the observations. This study develops a Bayesian test for detecting a switch from one linear model to another. The test is based on the marginal posterior mass function of the switch point and the posterior probability of a stable model. This test and an informal sequential procedure of Smith are illustrated with data generated from an unstable linear regression model, which changes the linear relationship between the dependent and independent variables     

Dealing with excess of zeros in the statistical analysis of magnetic resonance imaging lesion count in multiple sclerosis

Lesion count observed on brain magnetic resonance imaging scan is a common end point in phase 2 clinical trials evaluating therapeutic treatment in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). This paper compares the performances of Poisson, zero‐inflated poisson (ZIP), negative binomial (NB), and zero‐inflated NB (ZINB) mixed‐effects regression models in fitting lesion count data in a clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of fingolimod in comparison with placebo, in MS. The NB and ZINB models prove to be superior to the Poisson and ZIP models. We discuss the advantages and limitations of zero‐inflated models in the context of MS treatment. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competitive envy-free division

We are concerned with a fair division problem in which the indivisible goods to be distributed among a finite number of individuals have divisible bads associated with them. The problem is formulated and analyzed in terms of the housemates problem. We present an efficient procedure that decides whether an envy-free solution exists, and if so, finds one of them; otherwise finds a solution such that each envious housemate is assigned a room whose rent is zero.     

A household production model of demand for childcare and meals: theory and evidence from the Philippines

Becker/Mincer theory of home production was the first to systematically incorporate time in economic models, and the theory generated much empirical research in a wide variety of areas. However, the direct applications of Becker/Mincer home production theory in empirical research are scarce because of the innate immeasurability of commodities. In this paper, I recover unobservable commodities from the cost functions under certain assumptions about production technologies. Then, using the Philippine Bukidnon panel study of rural households, I test for the core of the Becker model: negative substitution effects between a time-intensive and a goods-intensive commodity arising from wage increases. The estimates of the structural form as well as the reduced form relative demand between childcare, which represents a time-intensive commodity, and meal consumption, which represents a goods-intensive commodity, support the major predictions of the model.