Anticipating modernity: the Jewish ‘welfare state’ in biblical and medieval times

The impact of religion on social policies and its role in the development, structuring and functioning of welfare states has only recently attracted significant attention. Studies of the relationship between religion and the welfare state have given little consideration to whether the religious precepts and values of the major religions, and the ways of life which they have shaped, are consistent with the idea of the welfare state. This paper shows that the elements of the definition of the modern welfare state were reflected in Jewish communal life as either prescribed by Jewish law (halakha) or lived during both ancient and medieval times, and that communal life was ‘welfare‐state‐like‘. In doing so this paper demonstrates that the idea of the welfare state is consistent with Judaism.     

Model-based clustering of multivariate skew data with circular components and missing values

Motivated by classification issues that arise in marine studies, we propose a latent-class mixture model for the unsupervised classification of incomplete quadrivariate data with two linear and two circular components. The model integrates bivariate circular densities and bivariate skew normal densities to capture the association between toroidal clusters of bivariate circular observations and planar clusters of bivariate linear observations. Maximum-likelihood estimation of the model is facilitated by an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm that treats unknown class membership and missing values as different sources of incomplete information. The model is exploited on hourly observations of wind speed and direction and wave height and direction to identify a number of sea regimes, which represent specific distributional shapes that the data take under environmental latent conditions.     

Otherness and empathy—implications of Lévinas ethics for social work education

This paper examines the concept of otherness in Lévinas’ ethics and raises related issues regarding the limits of empathy on philosophical grounds. This study also identifies and discusses a number of linguistic, social and cultural barriers that can establish such limits on practical grounds. This paper raises various considerations for social work educators teaching empathy. Such considerations suggest that social work educators could adopt a stance of ‘understanding and not understanding’ and a dialectical approach in using knowledge and skills. Furthermore, this study challenges the common assumption that empathy leads to compassionate action. Apart from empathy, moral commitment is necessary to engage in such action. This article discusses such moral commitment in relation to Lévinas’ notions of face and responsibility that place ethics before knowledge. Hence, the present study brings the attention of social work educators back to the importance of nourishing virtue and the moral character of students.     

音乐文化的民族性与世界性

对很多人来讲,民间、民族音乐是一个对应民族文化与原生文化环境,既亲近又遥远的精神世界;一个奇异、欢乐、充满天真而又迷人的人天合一、浪漫自由的与生活合一的精神时空;在其简易、不易、变易的历史长河中,实用与审美并存,显示出质朴天真、充满活力的精神特质,千百年来陪伴着各民族同胞在自然之苦的生态环境中挣扎、平衡、和谐、生发;承载着生活与精神的协调,表现着人们的文化心理、民族性格和审美理想;在生活中鼓舞着生存和创造的勇气与力量,也给人们带来圆满的笑声、意趣和希望。     

Tracing the roots of mindfulness: Transcendence in Buddhism and Christianity

The field of social work has embraced mindfulness skills in the training of social workers and as an intervention used in practice. However, there is little discussion regarding the theoretical or religious roots of mindfulness. In addition, social workers often employ mindfulness by practicing within a behaviorist frame. Missing from this behaviorist frame are the historic religious definitions, aims, and values of mindfulness, which lead to a fuller understanding of mindfulness in social work practice. This article traces the religious roots of mindfulness to clarify its goals in both Buddhism and Christianity, with an emphasis on the Mahayana branch of Buddhism and the contemplative and mystical traditions within Christianity. In both religions, mindfulness leads one to an experience of transcendence, assisting the follower to realize that the self belongs in relationship with a divine oneness in Buddha nature, that is believed to be intrinsic to all sentient beings (in Buddhism), or a divine God through the person of Jesus Christ (in Christianity) where the self is retained. Social workers uphold the values of mindfulness and the profession itself when being sensitive to root mindfulness practice within its historical and religious contexts, particularly within Buddhist and Christian faith systems.     

中国服务业显性比较优势测算——基于前向联系增加值出口

基于"前向联系增加值出口"方法,测算了1995-2011年中国服务业细分产业层面及按要素密集度特征分类层面的显性比较优势指数(RCA_F),并同基于"总出口"1的比较优势指数(RCA)进行了比较。研究发现,中国在全球价值链分工中,比较优势集中在资本密集型服务业领域,且实现了比较劣势向比较优势的转变;劳动、知识密集型服务业及健康教育公共服务均尚未取得比较优势,但是有迹象表明三个领域的比较劣势有改善的趋势。与基于前向联系增加值出口核算结果相比,基于总出口核算结果"高估"了劳动密集型产业的比较优势,其中对建筑业和零售贸易两个部门的估计偏差最大;同时,在资本、知识密集型两个领域存在不同程度的"低估"现象。     

生活世界视域中的公民身份认同探究

生活世界开启了人类活动的空间，同样它以自身的整体性纠正着人类前行道路的偏差，它使得人们在社会之中建构的各种权利获得了合法性和合理性支撑，同样，它促使人们认识到，对共同体的忠诚是公民履行自己的义务和责任，人类必须对生活世界或者栖息之地有归属感和认同感，对自己生活的共同体应该负有责任感，正是这种责任促使人们产生一种生态公民身份，以便人们更好地处理人对自然关系，达到人与自然和谐相处。     

The European Union in the flows of international students: attractiveness and inconsistency

This paper aims to describe the overall pattern of flows of international students and to determine the factors that can explain the variation of countries' attractiveness. In a second step, it assesses the position of the European Union as a whole in these flows at the global level. Is the EU strong enough in the global competition to attract the best brains? Besides, it shows how attractiveness factors can vary according to the profile of a sample of European Union member countries. In the third section of the paper, we raise some reflexions on the relations of the EU with its neighbourhood with respect to the flows of international students. In fact, the EU may not be able to maintain its status as a major power if it does not better regulate its relations with neighbour countries, especially in the domain of higher education and students' mobility.     

2011年世界经济形势回顾与2012年世界经济展望

由美国次贷危机引发的全球经济危机,至今没有走出困境,总的判断是,2011年世界经济复苏的进程放缓,进入了一个长期波动和低速增长时期。2012年世界经济前景仍然不被看好,甚至有下滑的可能。在世界经济复苏乏力、通胀压力仍然较大、金融市场风险激增、欧债危机加剧、消费者和投资者信心进一步受挫、贸易保护主义有所抬头的情况下,大多经济学家都对2012年世界经济充满忧虑。     

General results for the Kumaraswamy-G distribution

For any continuous baseline G distribution [G.M. Cordeiro and M. de Castro, A new family of generalized distributions, J. Statist. Comput. Simul. 81 (2011), pp. 883–898], proposed a new generalized distribution (denoted here with the prefix ‘Kw-G’ (Kumaraswamy-G)) with two extra positive parameters. They studied some of its mathematical properties and presented special sub-models. We derive a simple representation for the Kw-G density function as a linear combination of exponentiated-G distributions. Some new distributions are proposed as sub-models of this family, for example, the Kw-Chen [Z.A. Chen, A new two-parameter lifetime distribution with bathtub shape or increasing failure rate function, Statist. Probab. Lett. 49 (2000), pp. 155–161], Kw-XTG [M. Xie, Y. Tang, and T.N. Goh, A modified Weibull extension with bathtub failure rate function, Reliab. Eng. System Safety 76 (2002), pp. 279–285] and Kw-Flexible Weibull [M. Bebbington, C.D. Lai, and R. Zitikis, A flexible Weibull extension, Reliab. Eng. System Safety 92 (2007), pp. 719–726]. New properties of the Kw-G distribution are derived which include asymptotes, shapes, moments, moment generating function, mean deviations, Bonferroni and Lorenz curves, reliability, Rényi entropy and Shannon entropy. New properties of the order statistics are investigated. We discuss the estimation of the parameters by maximum likelihood. We provide two applications to real data sets and discuss a bivariate extension of the Kw-G distribution.