The historical roots of multicultural unity along the Upper Guinea Coast and in Guinea-Bissau

Lusofonia or lusophony is often defined as an identity shared by people in areas that were once colonised by Portugal, which in Africa include Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Lusofonia assumes that in these places people share something – a language, certainly, but also a history and culture rooted in the Iberian Peninsula. In some ways it is a re-articulation of Gilberto Freyre’s lusotropicalismo, the idea that Portuguese were more adaptable than other Europeans to tropical climates and cultures and created more multicultural colonial communities. Those who espouse lusofonia often have a political agenda – the strengthening of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries. In this article, we argue that, like lusotropicalismo, lusofonia is a dream; it is not rooted in a historical reality. It is luso-centric in that it ignores the power and persistence of local cultures and gives undue weight to Portuguese influence. With regard to Africa, lusofonia’s agenda is elite driven and assumes the inevitability of modernity and globalisation. And we demonstrate that it was through Upper Guinean institutions and languages, and not colonial ones, that community and fellowship were most commonly fostered in the past, as they are fostered today. Those seeking the roots of lusofonia cannot, then, look to this period of Portuguese–African engagement in Upper Guinea. There Portuguese embraced “black ways.” They operated in a peculiar multicultural space in which people possessed fluid and flexible identities. Portugal did not create that space. Lusofonia has not been the foundation for cultural unity. Rather, unity has been found in localised institutions and in Crioulo. In Guinea-Bissau, lusofonia is not an indigenous movement. If it is anything, it is the stuff of elites and foreigners and is not rooted in any historical reality.     

An Assessment of Change in Risk Perception and Optimistic Bias for Hurricanes Among Gulf Coast Residents

This study focuses on levels of concern for hurricanes among individuals living along the Gulf Coast during the quiescent two‐year period following the exceptionally destructive 2005 hurricane season. A small study of risk perception and optimistic bias was conducted immediately following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Two years later, a follow‐up was done in which respondents were recontacted. This provided an opportunity to examine changes, and potential causal ordering, in risk perception and optimistic bias. The analysis uses 201 panel respondents who were matched across the two mail surveys. Measures included hurricane risk perception, optimistic bias for hurricane evacuation, past hurricane experience, and a small set of demographic variables (age, sex, income, and education). Paired t‐tests were used to compare scores across time. Hurricane risk perception declined and optimistic bias increased. Cross‐lagged correlations were used to test the potential causal ordering between risk perception and optimistic bias, with a weak effect suggesting the former affects the latter. Additional cross‐lagged analysis using structural equation modeling was used to look more closely at the components of optimistic bias (risk to self vs. risk to others). A significant and stronger potentially causal effect from risk perception to optimistic bias was found. Analysis of the experience and demographic variables’ effects on risk perception and optimistic bias, and their change, provided mixed results. The lessening of risk perception and increase in optimistic bias over the period of quiescence suggest that risk communicators and emergency managers should direct attention toward reversing these trends to increase disaster preparedness.     

New cultural economies of marginality: revisiting the West Coast,South Island,New Zealand

Marginal regions have been the subject of political concern and remedial action in western states for several decades now. The West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand is an interesting case study in this regard, for recent economic growth has confounded earlier expectations of post-restructuring decline, while also contradicting several of the nostrums of new regionalism. In an effort to understand this trajectory, this paper draws on documents from public and private sector organisations, newspaper articles and field visits to examine developments in four key sectors of the West Coast's economy: mining, dairy farming, forestry and tourism. Economic growth is found to be closely linked to the cultivation of new markets for primary products, but efforts to rework the cultural dimensions of marginality have also been important. Value has been added to specific products through the insertion of references to the region's alpine and forested landscapes. Isolation and peripherality have been recast in more positive terms, echoing the broader reframing of New Zealand as a scenic, unspoiled destination. In adopting a cultural economic perspective on marginal regions, the paper illustrates the significance of symbolic forms of value, the potentially flexible nature of marginality as a discursive category, and the importance of the networks which connect regions to national and international flows of capital and tourists.     

从台湾公益广告看海西文化圈的共通意义空间

从传播学的视角探讨公益广告对两岸文化认同培养的要求和路径,通过考察台湾广告作品的意义结构与传播价值和区域性特点与意义分享两个视阈所呈现的意义空间的影响力,提出以公益广告建构海西文化圈路径的建议：建立开放的政治文化认同的价值体系,建立双向传播的有共通意义空间的符号系统,以区域经济的影响力加强组织机构、企业和媒体为主导力量的合作机制。     

Standards of Probability Sampling for Legal Evidence

Brief recognition is given to bicentennials of the death of James Stirling (1692–1770) and birth of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler (1770–1843); to sesquicentennials of the publication of the 3rd definitive edition of Laplace's Théorie analytique des probabilités, and of the births of William Chauvenet (1820–1870) and Isaac Todhunter (1820–1884); to centennials of the births of Louis Bachelier (1870–1946) and Jean Perrin (1870–1942); and to the semicentennial of the initial publication (1920) of Metron, an International Review of Statistics.     

‘Mobile mindsets’: EGM venue usage,gambling participation,and problem gambling among three itinerant groups on the Sunshine Coast of Australia

Mobile populations form an increasingly important part of many communities, yet tend to be neglected by problem gambling prevalence research. We explore relationships between problem gambling and the ways in which mobile subgroups use gambling venues. Adopting a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, we conduct an exploratory examination of three subgroups – construction workers, ‘grey nomads’, and ‘southerner’ tourists on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia. The groups displayed substantial differences in venue visitation, gambling behaviour and problem gambling risk. The group with the least discretionary mobility, the construction workers, were most heavily dependent on gambling venues for economic and social relationships. This translated into higher levels of problem gambling risk, which was further mediated by the inter-personal connectedness of individuals. These results suggest that mobility per se does not directly result in higher risk of problem gambling but combines with social isolation to place individuals at risk.     

International Trade Inoperability Input-Output Model (IT-IIM): Theory and Application

The inoperability input-output model (IIM) has been used for analyzing disruptions due to man-made or natural disasters that can adversely affect the operation of economic systems or critical infrastructures. Taking economic perturbation for each sector as inputs, the IIM provides the degree of economic production impacts on all industry sectors as the outputs for the model. The current version of the IIM does not provide a separate analysis for the international trade component of the inoperability. If an important port of entry (e.g., Port of Los Angeles) is disrupted, then international trade inoperability becomes a highly relevant subject for analysis. To complement the current IIM, this article develops the International Trade-IIM (IT-IIM). The IT-IIM investigates the resulting international trade inoperability for all industry sectors resulting from disruptions to a major port of entry. Similar to traditional IIM analysis, the inoperability metrics that the IT-IIM provides can be used to prioritize economic sectors based on the losses they could potentially incur. The IT-IIM is used to analyze two types of direct perturbations: (1) the reduced capacity of ports of entry, including harbors and airports (e.g., a shutdown of any port of entry); and (2) restrictions on commercial goods that foreign countries trade with the base nation (e.g., embargo).     

海峡西岸经济区旅游业发展空间差异与协调发展机制研究

区域旅游资源禀赋导致了旅游业发展水平差异。海峡西岸经济区涉及城市群众多,空间发展差异明显,这一定程度上影响了区域旅游业以及区域经济一体化进程。区域经济发展差异与协调理论是研究海峡西岸经济区旅游业发展的重要理论基础,能够指导海峡西岸经济区旅游业协调发展。     

Demanding an ‘adequate solution:’ the American Legion,the Immigration Act of 1924, and the politics of exclusion

This article analyses the American Legion’s role in developing a discourse of exclusion surrounding the Immigration Act of 1924. The Legion strategically used the political rhetoric of states’ rights and federalism in addition to racist and nativist language to emphasise the need for increased federal restrictions on immigration. The arguments found in the Legion’s resolutions, pamphlets and testimony to Congress place the organisation’s emphasis on the political disruptions caused by Japanese migrants within the context of evolving immigration reform. The Legion’s activism in exclusion contributes to an understanding of the history of states’ rights and federalism tropes in anti-immigrant arguments during the twentieth century.     

福州民问饮食文化资源开发与海西旅游发展

福州的民间饮食衷化对于福州旅游业、海西旅游有着潜在的多重促进功能。因此,应该采取优化饮食结构,提倡美食游、营养游;重新确定福州民间饮食的市场定位;加大特色饮食文化的开发力度;情景化动态化饮食文化的创设;多种形象化传媒手段的综合利用;提倡绿色消费等措施进一步开发福州民间饮食文化资源,促进海西旅游发展。