Loss and grief: The experience of transition to residential aged care

There is growing recognition of the experience of non-death-related loss and grief. One unexplored area of non-death-related loss and grief is associated with older people’s transition from home to residential aged care (RAC). This paper reports findings from a qualitative study that explored the experiences of people living in RAC, carer-relatives of people living in RAC and RAC staff. Using theories of loss and grief, the paper identifies features of the transition to RAC that are associated with unresolved loss and maladaptation to changed circumstances, and the types of support that would mitigate these. Using a series of focus groups with both residents and carer-relatives, as well as staff, the study found that residents and their families need more support to negotiate the multiple, often necessarily hasty decisions and bureaucratic requirements associated with transitioning to RAC, while simultaneously experiencing loss and grief. The types of support that families would welcome from service providers include facilitating shared decision making, valuing family and community carer expertise and providing practical information and assistance to fulfil administrative obligations.     

A new financial stress index model based on support vector regression and control chart

Financial stress index (FSI) is considered to be an important risk management tool to quantify financial vulnerabilities. This paper proposes a new framework based on a hybrid classifier model that integrates rough set theory (RST), FSI, support vector regression (SVR) and a control chart to identify stressed periods. First, the RST method is applied to select variables. The outputs are used as input data for FSI–SVR computation. Empirical analysis is conducted based on monthly FSI of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis from January 1992 to June 2011. A comparison study is performed between FSI based on the principal component analysis and FSI–SVR. A control chart based on FSI–SVR and extreme value theory is proposed to identify the extremely stressed periods. Our approach identified different stressed periods including internet bubble, subprime crisis and actual financial stress episodes, along with the calmest periods, agreeing with those given by Federal Reserve System reports.     

Changes in work and care trajectories during the transition to motherhood

In most mid- and high-income countries, there have been significant demographic, structural, and cultural changes in the past decades. However, we know little about how these changes have shaped women's work patterns during a key life stage: the transition to motherhood. Using longitudinal data from Chile, covering over 30 years of employment histories and three periods of first births (1980–2010), I conduct sequence analysis to identify women's work-care trajectories during an eight-year period of the transition to motherhood. Over time, I find that continuous care work at home has declined, for which education plays a key role, while the chances of working continuously have not changed over time. Instead, I find an increasing trend of unsteady paths that combine paid work with either caretaking or unemployment. I discuss how these changes, as well as their association with education, have important implications for both gender and social inequality.     

Robust Designs in Generalized Linear Models: A Quantile Dispersion Graphs Approach

This article studies design selection for generalized linear models (GLMs) using the quantile dispersion graphs (QDGs) approach in the presence of misspecification in the link and/or linear predictor. The uncertainty in the linear predictor is represented by a unknown function and estimated using kriging. For addressing misspecified link functions, a generalized family of link functions is used. Numerical examples are shown to illustrate the proposed methodology.     

政治关联如何影响社会组织有效性？——组织自主性的中介作用和制度支持的调节作用

社会组织领域的政治关联现象日益显著，但政治关联究竟如何影响社会组织有效性，其隐藏的作用机制又是什么？这是学术界尚未明晰的重要课题。针对254家社会组织的问卷调查发现，社会组织政治关联会正向影响组织有效性，这一关系受到组织自主性的中介作用影响。更进一步的研究显示，制度支持能调节上述中介关系。具体而言，当制度支持水平较高时，这一效应将会增强；当制度支持水平较低时，政治关联通过组织自主性间接影响组织有效性的效应就会减弱。这一发现，一方面增进了我们对社会组织政治关联的理解，另一方面也为提升社会组织有效性的理论和实践提供了重要启示。     

从WTO规则析我国农业国内支持制度的完善

WTO相关协议允许各国采用一定的农业国内支持措施，尤其是《农产品协定》的绿箱条款更指明了农业国内支持的方向。我国在入世协议中也对农业国内支持作了承诺。为此，要发展农业，应在遵守上述WTO规则的基础上逐步完善我国现行的农业国内支持制度。     

Holistic trajectories: a study of combined employment, housing and family careers by using multiple-sequence analysis

Summary.  Social science applications of sequence analysis have thus far involved the development of a typology on the basis of an analysis of one or two variables which have had a relatively low number of different states. There is a yet unexplored potential for sequence analysis to be applied to a greater number of variables and thereby a much larger state space. The development of a typology of employment experiences, for example, without reference to data on changes in housing, marital and family status is arguably inadequate. The paper demonstrates the use of sequence analysis in the examination of multivariable combinations of status as they change over time and shows that this method can provide insights that are difficult to achieve through other analytic methods. The data that are examined here provide support to intuitive understandings of clusters of common experiences which are both life course specific and related to socio-economic factors. Housing tenure is found to be of key importance in understanding the holistic trajectories that are examined. This suggests that life course trajectories are sharply differentiated by experience of social housing.     

社会支持在灾后心理危机干预中的作用

心理危机干预通过及时控制和减缓灾难的心理社会影响,促进了受灾者心理健康的重建。然而,当前我国灾区的心理干预工作存在着将心理危机干预与社会支持相混淆又相脱离的背反现象。调查和事实证实,只有实现二者的互动尤其是充分发挥社会支持系统的作用,才能够既促进灾后心理危机干预的专业性功能提升,又进一步增强实务工作的科学性和有效性。     

家庭暴力的原因及预防对策探微

目前,家庭暴力已成为越来越不容忽视的社会问题和影响社会稳定的不安定因素。其产生的原因既受到封建专制主义的文化传统和宗法等级制度的影响,也与当前社会竞争加剧给人们造成的巨大心理压力以及其他因素有关。其预防对策是要逐渐消除家庭暴力正常化的观念,鼓励被害人增强抗争意识,更要借助于公安机关的预防和打击。     

左思风力之成因初探

西晋诗人左思的诗风在西晋文坛上独树一帜，称之为“左思风力”，前人对此有较多地论述，然而就诗风形成的原因却缺乏深入地探究。本文试图从社会时代背景、家庭因素、性格特征三个方面对此加以分析，旨在能够更好地把握左思其人及其诗风。