Xena Rules

This paper analyzes and discusses “Antony and Cleopatra,” an episode from the popular and highly intertextual action-fantasy television series, Xena: Warrior Princess, in the context of the Roman story arc in the series and more particularly as a “feminized” appropriation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Although Xena's version of this tragedy copies the voluptuous atmosphere of Shakespeare's play, it radically changes its characterization. The Roman triumvirate exemplifies rigid and corrupted power play: Octavius is (as yet) a peaceful idealist, but Brutus (who replaces Lepidus) has murdered Cleopatra, and Antony, although brave and intelligent, is depicted as a ruthless and over-ambitious power politician, who is only taken in by a woman much cleverer than himself. Cleopatra is the victim of the struggle between these oppressive masculine forces, and, unlike Shakespeare's Queen of Egypt, Xena, who replaces her, does not allow her feelings for Antony to divide her from her sensibilities. She never loses sight of the desirable outcome: a mutual weakening of the combative (masculine) forces of empire and colonial expansion through war, and the survival of the traditionally feminine values of peace and justice. She eliminates both Antony and Brutus, and to a much larger extent than Shakespeare's fickle and understandably insecure lover-queen, Xena, a focused and confident female superhero, acts as an empowered and pragmatic ruler, who sacrifices her own love for the greater cause of Egypt's freedom.     

Xena and the Warrior Poets: Audre Lorde,Monique Wittig,and the myths of lesbian origins

This paper explores the connections between the television show Xena: Warrior Princess, and the myths of lesbian origins which were created by a loose collection of writers known as warrior poets. It argues that the show contains significant components of those myths as imagined by Audre Lorde and Monique Wittig. In particular, both show and myths share the presence of irresponsible gods; ideas of destiny; and women-centredness, which includes parthenogenesis, love, desire, and rivalry between women. The paper suggests that the transformative power of the show comes largely from the erotic connection between women that is at the core of these lesbian origin myths.     

中越跨界通婚的类型与促成途径

鉴于在中越边境居民跨界通婚研究中田野方法所存在的局限性,笔者在进行个案调查的同时开展了一项较大范围的抽样调查。调查结果表明,中越跨界通婚在我国边境地区较为普遍,但不同地区的婚姻类型、促成途径均有显著差异。     

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess: Reception of the Texts by a Sample of Lesbian Fans and Web Site Users

This qualitative study of television reception examined the ways in which a sample of lesbian fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess incorporated their experiences as viewers, fans, and Internet users with relation to their sexual identity as lesbians. Specifically, this study examined the ways in which participants used these television programs to inform their sexual identity development. Results indicated that participants used television and the Internet to normalize and affirm lesbian experience, to decrease negative feelings regarding their lesbian identities, and to decrease social isolation.     

Does Good Governance Enhance Happiness: A Cross Nation Study

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of the countries over the period of 10 years by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA). Based on rational and factual parameters such as freedom of press, freedom of religion, percentage of export in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), index of globalization, life expectancy at birth, gender ratio etc., this paper attempts to measure the efficiency of happiness. A combination of social and economic factors has been used to measure technical efficiency. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it measures the relative efficiency of all the countries included in the study. The nations have been ranked as per their relative efficiency and the peer group has been formed. Second a comparison between the rich and the poor countries have been done to test empirically whether the economic growth enhances the happiness among people. Presently, more than 3,000 studies have been published on happiness and Veenhoven in 2004 created a database called World Database of Happiness. The World Database of Happiness has attempted to present the available research findings on happiness. Part of the findings on happiness in nations is available in ‘States of nations’. For the research purpose, States of Nations and the data published by have been considered. Although happiness has been quantified and the existing literature has sufficient empirical evidences of the same, in the present context, the relative efficiency has been calculated for the countries on basis of objective and subjective happiness parameters. As per the literature, happiness has two aspects (1) objective and (2) subjective. Objective parameters are external to the individuals and covers material living parameters viz. GDP growth, income, nutrition, mortality rate, literacy etc. However, Subjective indicators measure the quality of life of the individuals. These are summarized as ‘‘subjective well-being’’. The various parameters considered in the study capture different aspects of happiness. The result shows how the government can increase the happiness of the people by analyzing the behavior and expectations. People express their preference explicitly about political parties, religion believes, law and order situation, trust in official institutions etc. Although, the behavior of people largely depends upon availability of goods and services in the market, the government can make budgets according to priority or preferences of people. Another way to increase happiness can be done by analyzing the peer group, which is an outcome of DEA. This shows the nations which are similar in terms of their economic and social conditions. The government can compare the prevailing conditions in different countries that improve the condition in their respective country. This could be an effective method as some of the parameters can be replicable in order to make people happier. The limitation of this study is lack of availability of data for many countries. As the number of countries increases, a change in the relative efficiency can be observed. Therefore, a future study can be conducted where the relevant data can be collected and a more global result can be obtained.     

Cross cultural comparisons of quality of life of Thais and Americans

Comparisons of quality of life (QOL) measures across cultures of countries in different stages of economic development have been very scarce. This study attempts to fill the void in the literature by investigating the level of overall life satisfaction and satisfaction with various domains of lives of Thais and Americans. Additionally, the relationships between satisfaction with domains of life and overall life satisfaction in each culture have been explored. The results of this study indicate that Thais are less satisfied with their lives in general and most of the domains of their lives than Americans. However, both Thais and Americans tend to be more satisfied with their personal domains of lives than environmental domains of lives. In addition, satisfaction with material possessions is found to contribute significantly to overall life satisfaction of Thais but not Americans. This suggests that material wealth or economic development is still a vital mechanism for enhancing QOL of people in Thailand, but is not important for enhancing QOL of people in the U.S.     

The association between midwifery staffing levels and the experiences of mothers on postnatal wards: Cross sectional analysis of routine data

BackgroundWomen have consistently reported lower satisfaction with postnatal care compared with antenatal and labour care. The aim of this research was to examine whether women’s experience of inpatient postnatal care in England is associated with variation in midwifery staffing levels.MethodsAnalysis of data from the National Maternity Survey in 2018 including 17,611 women from 129 organisations. This was linked to hospital midwifery staffing numbers from the National Health Service (NHS) Workforce Statistics and the number of births from Hospital Episode Statistics. A two-level logistic regression model was created to examine the association of midwifery staffing levels and experiences in post-natal care.ResultsThe median Full Time Equivalent midwives per 100 births was 3.55 (interquartile range 3.26–3.78). Higher staffing levels were associated with less likelihood of women reporting delay in discharge (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.849, 95% CI 0.753–0.959, p = 0.008), increased chances of women reporting that staff always helped in a reasonable time aOR1.200 (95% CI 1.052, 1.369, p = 0.007) and that they always had the information or explanations they needed aOR 1.150 (95% CI 1.040, 1.271, p = 0.006). Women were more likely to report being treated with kindness and understanding with higher staffing, but the difference was small and not statistically significant aOR 1.059 (0.949, 1.181, p = 0.306).ConclusionsNegative experiences for women on postnatal wards were more likely to occur in trusts with fewer midwives. Low staffing could be contributing to discharge delays and lack of support and information, which may in turn have implications for longer term outcomes for maternal and infant wellbeing.     

试论后人口转变

人口发展的实践启示我们,人口的运动变化在一次人口转变完结之后并未真的"静止"下来,而是呈现出与以往截然相反的演变趋势,其最显见的一个特征就是因死亡率的反降为升并超过出生率而导致的前所未有的人口萎缩,由此势必引发性状和结果都完全不同于以往的另一次人口转变,亦即本文所欲予求解的后人口转变.笔者认为与后人口转变进程形影相随的三大特征是低生育、负增长与高龄化.     

Cross Cultural Application of the WHOQOL-SRPB in the Chinese Community with Diverse Spiritual Affiliations

In order to contribute to providing a methodology to ensure objectivity and transparency in the measurement of multidimensional poverty, this paper proposes a new threshold for the identification of the multidimensional poor which is also applicable to each of the dimensions of poverty, suitable for identifying the severely poor in developed countries. This new methodology is applied to analyse the evolution of material deprivation in Spain during the period of economic crisis, comparing the results with those obtained using other traditional approaches.     

ICT Exposure and the Level of Wellbeing and Progress: A Cross Country Analysis

Social Indicators Research - Innovations of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have influenced human life through time-saving, diffusion of knowledge, easy communication, and...     

关于人口与自然和谐统一关系的再认识

伴随着人类经济社会的不断发展,人口、资源、环境的可持续问题日益受到人们的关注。马克思、恩格斯自然观对人与自然关系的分析及其所蕴涵的生态哲学思想．为正确认识人口与自然的和谐统一提供了独特的理论视阚。针对我国人口剧增、资源紧缺、环境恶化的严重形势,科学发展现生态文明理论的提出为实现人口与自然和谐统一提供了理论指南。     

我国户籍制度改革研究的回顾与展望

户籍制度自实行以来,对我国社会经济的影响可谓根深蒂目,本文在对我国户籍制度的改革历史回顾的基础上,着重梳理了当前学术界关于户籍制度研究的一些观点,并对未来户籍制度的改革进行了一些展望。     

Estimating Cross Province and Municipal City Price Level Differences in China: Some Experiments and Results

The estimation of Sub-national purchasing power parities (PPPs) for countries where the regions and provinces have different level of development is fundamental for income, consumption, standard of living real term comparisons, as well as for measuring cross-region welfare inequality. This is even truer for large countries like China, where the above aggregates exhibit great variability among provinces. The aim of this paper is to compute the price level differences, measured by the PPPs, for 31 Chinese Provinces and Municipal Cities, based on a sample of 62 goods and services for the year 2014. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to do it since many years. After a short review of previous studies on China cross-province and municipal cities price level differences measurement and the illustration of methodology and data used, the results of our elaborations are presented and discussed. Taking Beijing as the base area, there is evidence that the PPP max/min ratio is 1.74, confirming the common belief that China cross-province and municipal cities price levels are significantly different.     

对“中国人口城市化进程”问题的定位思考

在“中国人口城市化进程”的这个话题里,可以折射出中国发展的一段历史,本文试图从一个历史的、发展的、联系的视角作为定位思考的基本点,在探讨和分析中梳理思路,从而对中国人口城市化进程有一个比较理性客观的认识。这就是本文的初衷。     

胶东半岛人口城市化发展模式探讨

城市化是当今世界经济发展的趋势和潮流,并被公认是20世纪最显著的社会经济现象之一。城市化在一定程度上代表了一个国家的发展水平。胶东半岛是山东的发达地区,在打造山东半岛城市群的背景下,胶东半岛人口城市化模式如何选择至关重要。在胶东半岛人口稠密、交通设施完善、经济发展水平较高的现实基础上,实现“组团式”城市群发展模式,能更好地提高胶东半岛城市化水平。     

关于社会保障产生理论的思考

本文把当前公认的社会保障产生理论归结为新福利主义、马克思主义学说和其它思想三个方面。并分析说明它们解释社会保障事实缺乏力度,需要从历史和风险两方面作进一步的研究。     

A Method To Measure The Quality On Teaching Evaluation Of The University System: The Italian Case

Since 1999, Italian Universities have been monitoring teaching using students opinions to improve the quality of the education process. The acceleration of the evaluation has been promoted by ministerial laws, that have obliged Universities to write reports containing the main results. In this paper, the aim is to find a method to classify the Universities based on teaching evaluation.     

Cross sectional study of Australian midwives knowledge and use of sterile water injections for pain relief in labour

BackgroundThe effectiveness of sterile water injections (SWI) to relieve back pain in labour is supported by a number of randomised controlled trials. Although the procedure is available in a number of Australian maternity units, there is no information regarding the use of SWI by midwives, in terms of knowledge and availability, clinical application or technique used. Neither is there any data on midwives who do not use SWI nor the specific challengers and barriers encountered by midwives introducing SWI.MethodAn invitation to participate in an online survey was emailed to 4700 members of the Australian College of Midwives (ACM) and 484 members of CRANAplus (Remote Health Organisation). Nine hundred and seventy midwives completed the survey (19%).ResultsFour hundred and seven (42.5%) midwives currently used SWI in their practice and five hundred and fifty-one (57.5%) indicated they did not. Eighty-six percent (n = 478/548) indicated they would consider using SWI and 90% (n = 500/547) were interested in obtaining further information about SWI. The main reasons cited for not using SWI was the lack of a policy or guideline (n = 271, 57.5%) and being unable to access workshops or resource material (n = 68, 14.4%).ConclusionThis study indicates that SWI is not being used by the majority of midwives participating in the study, although there is a strong desire by midwives to learn about and explore its use. Greater access to information and workshops on SWI is highlighted. In response to the findings of this survey the authors are currently developing an online resource and training to support units to introduce SWI.     

A Note On The Changing Geography Of Cancer Mortality Within Metropolitan Regions Of The United States

An investigation made of the geography of cancer mortality rates within the most populous metropolitan regions of the United States and the New Jersey-New York-Philadelphia metropolitan corridor shows that during the early 1950s, as expected, central city counties had substantially higher cancer mortality rates, especially respiratory and digestive, than did suburbs. Two decades later, differences between the central cities and the suburbs had narrowed and sometimes disappeared.