It’s Not What You Know, but How You Use It: Statistical Knowledge and Adolescent Problem Gambling

This paper examined the nature of irrational gambling-related cognitions in a sample of 926 adolescents (mean age = 14.5 years) sampled from Australian schools. Students were differentiated according to gambling status and administered a series of items that assessed their understanding of objective odds, the nature of randomness, the role of skill in gambling, and the perceived profitability of gambling. The results confirmed previous findings that problem gamblers tend to be more irrational in their perceptions, as indicated by stronger beliefs in the role of skilful play in chance activities, and that gambling is a potentially profitable activity. However, counter intuitively, problem gamblers did not appear to have any poorer understanding of objective probabilities. These results are discussed in terms of Sevigny and Ladouceur’s (2004) concept of cognitive switching as well as psychological research concerning the role of emotional and motivational factors in the development of an illusion of control. The implications of these findings for gambling education programs are discussed.

The Global Middle Class: How Is It Made,What Does It Represent?

One important phenomenon to be observed in the world today is the rapid growth of the middle classes in emerging economies, especially in Asia. This development called for a new concept, the global middle class. The purpose of this paper is twofold: one is to examine the ways this term is currently used and clarify its meaning, and the other is to examine one empirical case of South Korea and highlight important processes involved in the making of a global middle class. The term global middle class has 2 meanings: (1) all the middle classes that exist in the world or (2) the affluent and globally oriented segments of the middle classes in developing countries. These 2 different conceptions serve different purposes and address different aspects of globalization's effect on the affected economy and society. While the expansion of the middle classes around the world is an unquestionably welcome phenomenon, the rise of the affluent global middle classes in developing countries represents a more complex and problematic phenomenon. The Korean case demonstrates that the emergence of the global middle class is associated with growing internal division within the middle class and intense processes of class distinction and educational pursuits in the global education market.     

Child Well‐Being: What Does It Mean?

The notion of child well‐being appears in a large number of publications nowadays. Our review of the literature underlines both the oddly pathogenic approach to child well‐being and the scarcity of papers discussing a still poorly defined notion. Through this review, we identified the recourse to a binary language; from there, we derived five theoretical axes that heed the multidimensional and multilevel nature of well‐being, although for each one, a pole is here predominantly developed. We argue in favour of an override of a one‐dimensional, single‐level, unipolar approach to child well‐being and an exploration of its otherwise underdeveloped positive, hedonic, subjective, spiritual and collective dimensions.     

Service Productivity: What Stops Service Firms from Measuring It?

Productivity measurement poses a challenge for service organizations. Conventional management wisdom holds that this challenge is rooted in the difficulty of accurately quantifying service inputs and outputs. Few service firms have adequate service productivity measurement (SPM) systems in place and implementing such systems may involve organizational transformation. Combining field interviews and literature-based insights, the authors develop a conceptual model of antecedents of SPM in service firms and test it using data from 276 service firms. Results indicate that one out of five antecedents affects the choice to use SPM, namely, the degree of service standardization. In addition, all five hypothesized antecedents and one additional antecedent (perceived appropriateness of the current SPM) predict the degree of SPM usage. In particular, the degree of SPM is positively influenced by the degree of service standardization, service customization, investments in service productivity gains, and the appropriateness of current service productivity measures. In turn, customer integration and the perceived difficulty of measuring service productivity negatively affect SPM. The fact that customer integration impedes actual measurement of service productivity is a surprising finding, given that customer integration is widely seen as a means to increase service productivity. The authors conclude with implications for service organizations and directions for research.     

Gambling Responsibly: Who Does It and To What End?

Numerous responsible gambling (RG) strategies are promoted to assist consumers to “gamble responsibly”. However, consumer adoption of RG strategies, how this varies by gambler risk group, and whether usage is associated with non-problematic gambling are largely unknown. This study aimed to (1) determine how use of RG-related strategies differs amongst regular gamblers by gambler risk group; and (2) identify RG-related strategies whose usage predicts non-problem/low risk gambling. Regular Australian gamblers on high-risk products (N = 860), recruited through gambling venues and an online wagering operator, were surveyed about their use of RG strategies promoted on the website of their jurisdiction’s main RG agency. Knowledge of RG strategies was reasonably high amongst all gambler risk groups, but lower-risk groups were more likely to use RG strategies. A logistic regression correctly predicted 82.1 % of lower-risk gamblers and 77.2 % of higher-risk gamblers. Predictors of lower-risk gambling included: greater confidence in their understanding of RG; endorsement of lower gambling expenditure and frequency limits; fewer erroneous gambling beliefs; being less likely to gamble to win money, challenge their skills/beat the odds, or forget about worries and stresses; and being more likely to gamble for pleasure/entertainment. Lower-risk gamblers were more likely to set a money limit in advance of gambling and to balance their gambling with other activities. These findings contribute to understanding which strategies are favoured by different risk groups, and which are associated with safer levels of gambling. They can guide consumer information aimed at enhancing RG consumption and future research on RG consumption.     

As You Sow,So Shall You Reap?

Foundations’ capacity‐building grant programs strive to bolster performance and outcomes for their nonprofit grantees. Yet with few outcome evaluations of such programs, we have limited understanding of whether these capacity‐building efforts achieve their intended result. This study evaluates fifteen years of data for one foundation's capacity‐building grant program to understand whether targeted capacity building for financial management and development contributes to nonprofit financial growth. The authors examine the management–performance link in this context and inform sector leaders who dedicate resources to capacity‐building programs about the outcomes of these efforts.     

What Would You Sacrifice? Access to Top Management and the Work–life Balance

This article is based on a current research, combining quantitative (human resources figures and statistics) and qualitative data (60 interviews with career managers, top managers and high potential talents, both men and women), conducted in a major French utility company on the subject of diversity and more specifically on the issue of women's access to top management positions. The main purpose of this research is to understand the difficulties women may encounter in the course of their occupational career linked to organizational aspects, including the ‘glass ceiling’ processes, informal norms related to management positions (such as time and mobility constraints) and social and cultural representations attached to leadership. The other perspective of this research focuses on the different strategies women and men build either to conform to the organizational norms or bypass them. The issue of work–life balance are therefore addressed both from a corporate/organizational standpoint and an individual and family perspective.     

Alcohol and Sexual Health Behavior: “What We Know and How We Know It”

Alcohol, despite salutary associations with sexuality, has been implicated in sexual health problems. This review examines the relationship between alcohol and outcomes related to sexual health. Methodological considerations limiting causal assertions permissible with nonexperimental data are discussed, as are advantages of experimental methods. Findings from laboratory experiments are reviewed evaluating causal effects of acute alcohol intoxication on a variety of outcomes, including sexual arousal, sexual desire, orgasm, and sexual risk behaviors related to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Several variables exerting mediating and moderating influences are identified. It is concluded that acute alcohol intoxication is capable of exerting a causal impact on multiple constituent components of sexual responding related to sexual health. Both alcohol expectancy and alcohol myopia theories have been supported as explanations for these causal effects. Furthermore, for sexual risk behavior, noteworthy recent developments include research highlighting the importance of women’s sexual victimization history and men’s condom use resistance. Limitations and implications associated with this body of research are also discussed.     

“It Led to Great Advances in Science”: What Teacher Candidates Know About the Holocaust

A quarter of a century has passed since lawmakers enacted the New Jersey Holocaust education mandate, and it seems responsible and timely to ask if it, the original Holocaust education mandate, actually encouraged substantive learning about the Holocaust. Despite repeated fanfare about the mandate and its inclusion in educational curricula throughout the state, no existing studies have tested its impact. To fill the gap, this article examines the effectiveness of the New Jersey Holocaust education mandate. It does this by reviewing and analyzing a survey of teacher candidates at a large public university in New Jersey to develop data on the knowledge and attitudes about the Holocaust. The teacher candidates comprised a pool whose primary and secondary education took place under the mandate and who intend to teach within the state-mandated framework. After a review of the current state of Holocaust education, the article examines the New Jersey mandate and curriculum more carefully. It then moves on to explore the results of a mixed-methods survey given to teacher candidates at a public university in that state to offer a measure of the mandate’s success. Finally, it ends with implications for revisions of curriculum and instruction.     

What Does Sexual Arousal Mean to You? Women With and Without Sexual Arousal Concerns Describe Their Experiences

Sexual arousal is frequently characterized by both subjective (i.e., mental) and physiological (e.g., genital) components. The nuances of these components, however, are difficult to capture via self-report instruments. Asking women to describe sexual arousal in their own words may therefore enhance our understanding of this construct. In the present study, women with (n = 190) and without (n = 610) arousal concerns were recruited online and wrote about their experience of sexual arousal. Seven clusters of words were extracted using automated text analysis, and the prominence of these clusters was compared between groups of women. The autonomic arousal cluster differed between groups such that women with arousal concerns invoked this cluster significantly less than did women with no such concerns. Furthermore, the context cluster significantly predicted group membership (odds ratio [OR] = 1.063); greater scores on this cluster were associated with arousal concerns. Results suggest that autonomic arousal and relationship factors may play important roles in arousal concerns. It is suggested that clinicians assess for aspects of the sexual relationship that may facilitate or hinder sexual arousal. Clinicians may also consider inquiring about the presence or appraisal of autonomic arousal (e.g., one’s interpretation of an increase in heart rate or respiration) during sexual activity.     

Mom,I Understand You

To celebrate Mother's Day, the editors of Society Weekly(published by People's Daily) invited their readers to write and submit "A Sentence for Mother." This activity, which was co-sponsored by the "Program of Happiness," garnered quite an emotional response. Among the contributions we received were several from the 21 students of Class Three, Grade Two of the high school affiliated with the Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology. "Mother, you are a towering tree and I am your shadow. "—ZHANG YE "Mother, you are an umbrella, and we are the children under it. You are the pod, and we are the peas."—XU JING     

What Sociologists Do and Where They Do It—The NSF Survey on Sociologists's Work Activities and Workplaces

We present data from the National Science Foundation Survey of Doctoral Recipients that challenges the image of sociology as a classroom-based group of professionals. Our data reveal that only 45.8% of Ph.D. sociologists teach sociology. The anachronistic and false image of sociology, we argue, is profoundly consequential to the way sociologists interact with each other and with the larger society. As a discipline we tend to ignore or dismiss the doing of sociology in favor of the teaching of sociology or of theoretically focused research. We also present data on principal tasks and job classifications for those in academic and nonacademic settings.     

职业It语中商务邮件的It语语言训练设计

随着世界贸易的进一步开放，中日两国的贸易往来也在逐渐的上涨。在贸易中使用电子邮件也越来越频繁。在一些日语专业的学校里，也相应的开设了商务日语这门课程。在一些教材中，也详细的介绍了如何运用日语写邮件这一方面的内容。有些例子太过于专业化，用语复杂，很难在实际中自由的运用。有些不太正式，不适合在正式的贸易往来中加以运用。对于如何在以后的工作中更好的运用日语跟日本客户进行贸易往来。本人做出了以下的自我理解。     

What Are You Doing Here? 'Non-disabled' people and the disability movement: A response to Robert F. Drake

There appears to be a growing move amongst 'non-disabled' people, who research and work in our area, to justify their involvement. In my view, however, their attempts at justification are doomed to failure. The relation between 'non-disabled' people and the disability movement is very difficult, if not impossible. This is not said in anger or despair but rather this is a political statement. Obviously 'non-disabled' people have a role to play in so far as the aim of the disability movement is to remove disabling social and environmental inequalities. 'Non-disabled' people are going to have to change if we want to succeed and end the reality of our oppression. But this necessarily means that the relation of 'non-disabled' people to the disability movement involves a degree of exclusion.     

What’s the Relationship Got to do with It? Understanding the Therapeutic Relationship in Therapeutic Foster Care

The therapeutic relationship is increasingly recognized as important to understanding how process variables contribute to treatment outcomes. In this paper, we examine the therapeutic relationship between children with serious emotional and behavioral disorders and their treatment providers in the context of an observational study of Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC). Our findings suggest that the quality of the relationship between the treatment parent and youth in a TFC setting is significantly associated with better emotional and behavioral functioning for the youth. It appears from these findings that the quality of the relationship between the youth and treatment parent in a TFC setting is at least one of the mechanism or process factors that contribute to improved functioning for the youth.     

“What Kind of People Do You Think We Are?”: The Scenography of Gypsy Performances of Difference

In Parakalamos (a village in NW Greece) Gypsyness, historically constituted as a “disheveled otherness,” claims a space of encounter with people and actions that are “other,” but also arise from within, ossified, but also ephemeral and fleeting. By exploring the way Gypsies in Parakalamos discussed and experienced processes of identification, I shift the issue of Gypsy otherness away from the well-ordered schema of neatly divided communities usually found within Gypsy ethnography, and I am concerned with the scenography of Gypsy difference: drawing upon a more general discussion on stereotypes, identity, and difference, I explore the situatedness, instability and partial character of Gypsy performances of difference, which nonetheless cannot lie outside the topography of marginality in and through which Parakalamos Gypsies have emerged as particular historical subjects.