Behind the allure of gambling: A qualitative exploration of the existential yearnings of Chinese men with problem gambling in Hong Kong

Drawing on a qualitative exploratory study of the gambling narratives of a group of Chinese men with problem gambling in Hong Kong, this paper proposes an alternative understanding of problem gambling. Rather than identifying problem gambling as a personal deficit or pathology, a narrative analysis of these Chinese men's gambling stories reveals their existential yearnings behind problem gambling. Told from the perspectives of these men, their gambling narratives invite us as researchers and practitioners to explore the meanings gamblers ascribe to gambling which they derived from the interplay between the socioeconomic and cultural ethos of the society and their personal histories. This offers us new insights into their motivations of gambling. As an attempt to fill the methodological gap in gambling studies, this paper also shows how an in-depth narrative research method can contribute to expanding our understanding of problem gambling beyond pathology.     

Predictors of Cycling in College Students

Abstract

Objectives: To (1) assess cycling-related questions that have been added to the electronic version of the American College Health Association National College Health Assessment II (ACHA-NCHA), (2) examine cycling prevalence, and (3) identify predictors of cycling in college students. Participants: Predominately female (69%), undergraduate (89%), and white (85%) students (N = 949) from a large, urban, northwestern, bicycle-friendly university completed the electronic version of the ACHA-NCHA II. Methods: Thirty cycling-related questions were added to the ACHA-NCHA II and a subsample of questions was analyzed. Results: Cycling questions added to the ACHA-NCHA II scale were reliable and valid, based on the psychometric data analysis. More than half (59%) of this sample cycled; of those, 58% cycled for transportation and 44% for recreation. Facilitators and barriers to cycling were different for cycling in general and cycling for transportation. Conclusions: Cycling questions added to the ACHA-NCHA II can be utilized to enhance knowledge relative to cycling on college campuses.     

Outcome evaluation of peer support programme for helping Chinese parents under stress

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a support group programme using peer parent counsellors in reducing participant stress and enhancing social support. Participants included 173 Chinese parents with 134 providing complete data. They were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups at service-centre level. The results indicated that there was a significant decrease in psychological distress and increase in social support among intervention group participants at post-intervention, compared with the control group. Qualitative data also indicated that participants' stress was reduced through sharing with their peers. Implications for social service practice were discussed.     

Tabu search for the real-world carpooling problem

Carpooling is a flexible shared transportation system which can effectively reduce the vehicle numbers and fuel consumption. Although many carpooling systems have been proposed, most of them lack practicality, veracity, and efficiency. In this paper, we propose a new useful variant model of the long-term carpooling problem which involves multiple origins and one destination. Such problems commonly occur in a wide number of carpooling situations in real-world scenarios. Our work is motivated by the practical needs to solve environmental pollution, parking problems, traffic jams and low utilization of resources. A Tabu search algorithm is proposed in this paper to solve the carpooling problem. The proposed algorithm aims at a wide range of passenger distribution and routing problems. The computational results based on real world user data show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Moreover, we developed a mobile application based on our carpooling model.     

Managing Integrity: The Regulation of Post Public Employment in Britain and Hong Kong

In this article, we examine the regulatory mechanisms governing post public employment in Britain and Hong Kong in the context of changing views on how integrity should be managed in their civil services. In both places, new public management practices have increased the possibility of ‘soft’ conflicts of interest which in turn has resulted in debates over the necessary degree of regulation, the organizational form that this should take, and the extent to which ethical concerns should be more focused on the communication and inculcation of core values in civil servants. We argue that the difficulty of regulating ‘soft’ conflicts of interests is driving moves toward the greater centralisation of ethical regulation in both Britain and Hong Kong and that there appears to be a return to more traditional ways of managing integrity.

Classification of dichotomous and continuous variables with incomplete samples

This Article Considers the problem of classifiying an observation consisting of both binary and continuous variables based on two general incomplete training samples one from each of the two given populations. The location linear model adopted by krzanowski 1975 forms the basis of our inverstigation. For a given location, When the common dispersion matrix as Well as the corresponding cell probabilities for the underlying populations are known, exact distribution of the conditional maximum likelihood classification rule is derived. The overall error rate can be obtained and is based on linear cominations of independent non– Chi– Distributions. large sample result for the case where the cell probabilities are unknown is also available.     

Social Mitigation of the Impact of Urban Renewal on Residents’ Morale

Residents in the site of urban renewal suffer from its disturbance particularly during its demolition phase. One possible way of mitigating the suffering is assistance from kin and neighbors. The possibility rests on need fulfillment theory, which posits that needed assistance is salutary. To examine this possibility, the study surveyed 437 residents staying around urban renewal sites in Hong Kong. Results lent support to the hypothesized mitigation regarding neighbors’ help but not kin’s help. Instead, the kin’s support exhibited a significantly main positive effect on a resident’s morale. Furthermore, quality in neighborhood amenities but not in the residential environment showed a significantly main effect on morale. Results imply the merit of sustaining amenities quality and kin and neighbor assistance for mitigating the demoralizing impacts on residents during urban renewal.     

Research the mobile phone operation interfaces for vision-impairment

Due to the vision-impaired users commonly having difficulty with mobile-phone function operations and adaption any manufacturer's user interface design, the goals for this research are established for evaluating how to improve for them the function operation convenience and user interfaces of either mobile phones or electronic appliances in the market currently. After applying collecting back 30 effective questionnaires from 30 vision-impairment, the comments have been concluded from this research include: (1) All mobile phone manufactures commonly ignorant of the vision-impairment difficulty with operating mobile phone user interfaces; (2) The vision-impairment preferential with audio alert signals; (3) The vision-impairment incapable of mobile-phone procurement independently unless with assistance from others; (4) Preferential with adding touch-usage interface design by the vision-impairment; in contrast with the least requirement for such functions as braille, enlarging keystroke size and diversifying-function control panel. With exploring the vision-impairment's necessary improvements and obstacles for mobile phone interface operation, this research is established with goals for offering reference possibly applied in electronic appliance design and . Hopefully, the analysis results of this research could be used as data references for designing electronic and high-tech products and promoting more usage convenience for those vision-impaired.     

Social Networks and Self Enhancement in Chinese Children: A Comparison of Self Reports and Peer Reports of Group Membership*

Children's self reports of social groups were compared with the social groups identified by a consensus judgment of their peers. The subjects were 138 Chinese 4th grade students (mean age = 9.91) from a primary school and 167 Chinese 7th grade students (mean age = 13.09) from a secondary school, both located in Hong Kong. Following the Social Cognitive Map (SCM) procedure, students were asked to identify the social groups within their grades, including their own groups. The subjects also rated themselves on multiple domains of competence. Their teachers rated them on the same domains. Subjects tended to be biased toward self-enhancement when reporting their own groups: They omitted members who had low school scholastic rank and unfavorable scores on teacher ratings of competence. There was a strong effect of propinquity and gender on group membership, in that all groups were comprised of children from the same classroom and virtually all (98%) of the same sex. Members scored similarly on teacher ratings of competence. In elementary school, conventional values and academic achievement provided the behavioral bases for peer group cohesion. By early adolescence, peer-related concerns supplemented rather than replaced conventional values as the bases for group cohesion.