Zhu Baoping, Landscape Painter and His Three Spiritual Props

The Two Baopings I met Zhu Baoping through my friend Yuan Rong.He said during a chat that he once used the name of Yuan Baoping. At that time, it was very common for names like Baoping, Weiping, Jianjun and Aijun, which meant safeguarding peace and loving the army, among soldiers and their sons. He studied in a primary school with students mainly from military compounds, so there were many students with     

Travelling the East Greenlandic Sea- and Landscape: Encounters,Places and Stories

Abstract

Travel forms a significant part of the lives of many East Greenlandic Iivit involving pleasure aspects and work necessities. The journeys include manifold encounters among humans, animals and environmental features, and according to some Iivit, also with specific non-human beings inhabiting the wider area. During certain moments, when the routes of human and non-human beings and features intersect, meaningful places are created that are remembered and passed on by means of stories. This article shows the close intertwining between moving for pleasure and moving for work and the importance of places in Iivit lifeworlds pointing to the continuous influence of people’s semi-nomadic past.     

Segregation and Fragmentation: Extending Landscape Ecology and Pattern Metrics Analysis to Spatial Demography

Though demography’s roots involve a strong spatial component, recent attention to capitalizing on widely available spatially referenced demographic data has returned the focus to spatially enabled analyses. Landscape ecology offers a theoretical framework and concomitant methodology in pattern metric analysis well suited for extracting process through the examination of spatial patterns. Applied on the environmental side of population–environment interaction research, pattern metric analysis has not been brought to bear on population data per se. This research illustrates the utility of a pattern metric approach utilizing U.S. Census data from 1990 and 2000 to document changes in spatial configuration of race and class in South Carolina. The results corroborate similar findings elsewhere of exurban growth as well as an increasing income gap and spread of Hispanic population, both statistically and spatially. Further insight into the forces related to these processes is gained from explicit assessment of spatial configuration. The method is offered as a complementary tool to the richly evolving field of spatial demography.     

The US National Intelligence Council on the Changing Geopolitical Landscape

The National Intelligence Council, a body reporting to the Director of National Intelligence, draws on expertise from within and outside the US intelligence community to assess strategic developments bearing on national security. In addition to its classified reports (notably the National Intelligence Estimates) the Council also issues unclassified versions of some of its work. In December 2004 it released a report, Mapping the Global Future, the outcome of a year‐long study known as the 2020 Project, looking at geopolitical trends in the world over the medium term. Robert L. Hutchings, the NIC's then chairman, writes in a preface that this report “offers a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss.” It differs from a preceding NIC exercise, Global Trends 2015 (2000), in the wider range of experts consulted—preparatory workshops were conducted in a number of countries—and in the heavier store it places on formal scenario development. While the underlying scenario‐building techniques employed are not spelled out in the document (some are described elsewhere on the NIC's website), four specific “fictional scenarios” are selected to enliven the report: Davos World—illustrating “how robust economic growth, led by China and India, … could reshape the globalization process”; Pax Americana—“how US predominance may survive the radical changes to the global political landscape and serve to fashion a new and inclusive global order”; A New Caliphate—“how a global movement fueled by radical religious identity politics could constitute a challenge to Western norms and values as the foundation of the global system”; and Cycle of Fear—proliferation of weaponry and terrorism “to the point that large‐scale intrusive security measures are taken to prevent outbreaks of deadly attacks, possibly introducing an Orwellian world.” (The quotes are from the report's executive summary.) The excerpt reproduced below comprises the section of the report headed “Rising Powers: The Changing Geopolitical Landscape,” omitting text boxes and charts. The summary table appended is taken from the beginning of the document. The full report is available at http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2020.html .     

Flows and Pauses in the Urban Logistics Landscape: The Municipal Regulation of Shipping Container Mobilities

Abstract

The mobilities turn has demonstrated the importance of the social, cultural and political implications of travel for a variety of modes, though largely focused on people and vehicles, not freight. The transport of goods by shipping container has become the predominant means of freight transport since the 1960s, shaping places from port cities to rural distribution centers. This paper uses two North American case studies to explore temporary immobilities or pauses in the flows of shipping containers, showing that the problems containers pose to the places they pass through are not a function of the objects themselves, but their state of mobility. Pauses are important as a category of mobility because of the consequences of regulations that attempt to eliminate or redirect them.

     

When People Stay and Things Make Their Way: Airports,Mobilities and Materialities of a Transnational Landscape

Abstract

This article explores different meanings of mobility and place by examining the interweaving of people, things and airports in Guinea-Bissau and Portugal. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two airports – of departure and arrival of this migratory route – I look at the practices of sending and receiving objects by migrants in Lisbon and their kin in Bissau. The transnational yet grounded setting helps to provide a better understanding of the complexity associated with different forms of mobility – including corporeal, imagined and desired – and their key role in socially and relationally constructing a lived airport space, as well as wider social landscapes. Bringing in evidence from a less-explored setting – a small airport in a West African country – will particularly challenge some of the assumptions that tend to associate mobility with ‘modernity’ and fixity with ‘tradition’. It will show how people in Guinea-Bissau are, as much as migrants abroad, dynamically involved in global practices of movement – materialised in trading and reciprocating objects between two continents – through local performances of mobility that do not necessarily involve corporeal travel across borders.     

Book Review: Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict. Michael T. Klare. New York: Owl Books, 2001

Population and Environment -     

"Mummies and babies" and friends and lovers in Lesotho

This paper examines an institutionalized friendship among adolescent girls and young women in southern Africa. Lesotho's economy is based on migrant male labor which leaves the women dependent on male earnings or subsistence from the land, and also creates unstable marital relations. Young girls in the modern schools develop close relationships, called "mummy-baby," with slightly older girls. Sexual intimacy is an important aspect of these relationships. Mummy-baby relationships not only provide emotional support prior to marriage, but also a network of support for married and unmarried women in new towns or schools, either replacing or accompanying heterosexual bonds.     

Understanding and Using Mediators and Moderators

Mediation and moderation are two theories for refining and understanding a causal relationship. Empirical investigation of mediators and moderators requires an integrated research design rather than the data analyses driven approach often seen in the literature. This paper described the conceptual foundation, research design, data analysis, as well as inferences involved in a mediation and/or moderation investigation in both experimental and non-experimental (i.e., correlational) contexts. The essential distinctions between the investigation of mediators and moderators were summarized and juxtaposed in an example of a causal relationship between test difficulty and test anxiety. In addition, the more elaborate models, moderated mediation and mediated moderation, the use of structural equation models, and the problems with model misspecification were discussed conceptually.

Complementary and alternative medicine: Interaction and communication between midwives and women

BackgroundMany pregnant women use complementary and alternative medicine. Although midwives are often supportive, how they communicate with women about the safe use of these therapies has received limited research attention.AimThe aim of this study was to explore how midwives interact with women regarding use of complementary and alternative medicine during pregnancy.MethodsWe utilised grounded theory methodology to collect and analyse data. Twenty-five midwives who worked in metropolitan hospitals situated in Melbourne, Australia, participated in the study. Data were collected from semi structured interviews and non-participant observations, over an 18-month period.FindingsHow midwives communicate about complementary and alternative medicine is closely associated with the meaning they construct around the woman's role in decisionmaking. Most aim to work in a manner consistent with the midwifery partnership model and share the responsibility for decisions regarding complementary and alternative medicine. However, although various therapies were commonly discussed, usually the pregnant woman initiated the dialogue. A number of contextual conditions such as the biomedical discourse, lack of knowledge, language barriers and workplace constraints, limited communication in some situations.ConclusionMidwives often interact with women interested in using CAM. Most value the woman's autonomy and aim to work in partnership. However, various contextual conditions restrain overt CAM communication in clinical practice.     

Beliefs and values and the sterilization decision

A decision-making framework based on the models of personal decision making developed by psychologists and economists and a methodology based on axiomatic conjoint measurement are used to explore individuals' beliefs and values regarding contraceptive sterilization. Particular emphasis is given to demonstrating a. that there exist individual differences in beliefs and values, b. that there exist differences in beliefs and values between persons who choose sterilization—either tubal ligation or vasectomy—and persons who choose non-sterilization contraceptive methods when no more children are wanted, and c. that the effect of beliefs and values on the sterilization decision is an interactive one. The methodology used is compared to that typically used in studying fertility- and health-related behaviors.This research was supported by grants HD-10802 and HD-14403 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The technical assistance of Doreen Victor and the editorial suggestions of Sarah Gaskill, Alice Healy, and two anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated. This paper is Publication No. 253 of the Center for Research on Judgment and Policy, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0344. Requests for reprints should be sent to the Publications Librarian at the Center.     

Family Instability and College Enrollment and Completion

This research uses data from waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, N = 9,631) to consider whether and how family instability in early or later childhood affects college enrollment and completion of a Bachelor’s degree by age 24. Explanatory factors include maternal selection into unstable unions, household resources available in adolescence, and adolescents’ academic achievement, behavior, and attitudes in high school. The association of later family instability with college enrollment and completion is largely explained by household resources in adolescence. The association of early family instability with college enrollment is partially explained by each set of factors, and its association with college completion, given enrollment, is explained by pre-existing maternal characteristics. The results demonstrate that early family instability has enduring consequences for eventual status attainment and that the mechanisms that connect family instability to educational outcomes vary by the timing of family structure change.     

The relationships between population and economy, and between population and education]

The relationship between population and economy is regarded seriously by China and other countries. This problem can be analyzed and studied under 2 aspects: 1) the influence of economic development on changes in population, and 2) the influence of population increases on economic development. Under the 1st aspect, improved living conditions, hygiene, and health care generally result in lowered mortality rates. Improved economic conditions in China also increased the birthrate and at the same time increased birth control among the people; the increased birthrate was due to more marriages after liberation. In economically advanced countries, due to high expenses in raising children, people tend to limit family sizes to 2 children/family. Under the 2nd aspect, population increases place strains on the food supply and nutritional requirements, especially when increases are too rapid. They also demand more educational resources and influence quality of education. As there are currently 210 million students in China, the quality of education suffers, particularly at the college level, since most of Chinese manpower, physical and financial resources are spent on primary and secondary education. In terms of housing, transportation, health care, and natural resources, they are all intimately related to and influenced by increases in population. Consequently, the living standard would be difficult to raise if population increases are too rapid. Since 1971, population increases have been incorporated into 5-yearly and later yearly national economic plans in China. The large Chinese population is a major obstacle in raising the Chinese economic level, hence a well-planned population control program is essential.     

Injecting and Rejecting,Framing and Failing

This paper seeks to examine how female subjectivities are privileged by Canadian human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination discourse and, in turn, how homosexual male subjectivities are displaced. Employing a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, I analyze selected HPV vaccination (HPVV) promotional materials, and depict the discursive strategies which privilege and exclude gendered subjectivities. My critical analysis is influenced by feminist linguistic works that seek to uncover the discursive constructions around sexuality, gender and identity, and the discursive strategies used to communicate ideas about sexual health risks and responsible citizenship. In addition, I adopt feminist theories of knowledge and power to rethink the discursive representations of some bodies and subjectivities as normal, and Others as unintelligible within HPVV discourse in today's neoliberal time.