Pathways between education and health: a causal modelling approach

Summary.  The association of poor education and poor health has been consistently observed in many studies and in various countries. Thus far, studies examining the mechanisms underlying this association have looked at only a limited set of potential pathways. This study simultaneously examines six distinctive pathways, which have been hypothesized to link education and health and found support from previous studies. A causal analysis of education and health was performed using structural equation models. Data were used from six phases of the National Child Development Study, which is based on following up an initial sample of 17416 children who were born in 1958. The association between education and health appears to be explained by a combination of mechanisms: adolescent health and adult health behaviours for men and women, adult social class among men and parental social class among women. We conclude that improvements in population educational attainment may not automatically lead to improvements in population health, and that health policies for improving health and reducing health inequalities need to target specific causal pathways.     

Evaluation: Stakeholder-focused Criteria

Identifying and selecting suitable criteria is an important consideration in evaluating the performance of public sector organizations. Which criteria are chosen, and how they are weighted, will depend largely on the perspective being taken; different stakeholders (for example, clients, providers or commissioners) are likely to emphasize different criteria. In this paper a number of criteria are identified and an argument is developed to indicate which criteria are likely to be valued by various stakeholders. Furthermore, a number of approaches and mechanisms for evaluation are identified and the links between these, the criteria appropriate to them and the various stakeholders are made explicit. Finally, the issue of politics and the distribution of power between the stakeholders is addressed with a call for greater explicitness in using and balancing criteria (for example, as between professionals and the intended beneficiaries of services). In this way, while recognizing the inherent political nature of performance evaluation, the planning and implementation of services may be improved by a more mutually informed approach to evaluation.     

Organization and implementation of China's national sampling survey on fertility and birth control

The Planning and Statistical Department of the State Family Planning Commission of China in July 1988 implemented a fertility and birth control survey in China on 2.16 million married women ages 15-57 using stratified, systematic, clustered, and non-proportionate sampling. 3 questionnaires were used: household, married women, and sample unit covering basic status, family planning status, general characteristics of pregnancy and contraception, population flow, deaths since 1981, and socioeconomic status. The authors suggest several international cooperative research projects including: design of fertility and contraception survey; Chinese population growth; Chinese population dynamics; dynamics of marital and family status; fertility; contraception and birth control; mortality; migration; status of the nationalities of China; population development; regional fertility status; and others. Data from the survey will be available in June 1989.     

我国西南地区乡村治理的历史变迁、现状问题与实践路向

现代意义上的乡村治理是通过国家、社会、乡村等的共同作用,来实现对乡村社会动态调控和管理的过程,具有参与主体多元、管理方式民主、运行过程公开等特点。新中国成立以来,西南地区乡村治理共经历了四个各具特色的阶段。新时代的新阶段,这一地区在由脱贫攻坚向乡村振兴转轨的过程中面临着诸多亟待解决的现实问题。在汲取历史经验教训的基础上,针对这些问题可提出若干相应的对策建议。这对在新阶段推进该地区乃至全国的乡村治理现代化,都具有不言而喻的意义和价值。     

民国时期凉山彝区的保哨制度研究

保哨制度是晚清至民国时期凉山彝区主要交通线上具有军事保护性质的地方制度。民国时期,因凉山彝区民族关系紧张、交通梗阻,在凉山地方政府的支持下,于关键险要之处设置哨所,由哨兵保护行旅通过彝区。这种制度在一定程度上保障了凉山地区交通的畅通,但是在后期也给商旅带来经济负担,成为军阀征税的名目和壮大的政治资本,同时也造成当时民族关系进一步紧张。     

以意义为中心的布鲁纳文化心理学研究

美国著名教育心理学家和认知心理学家杰罗姆·布鲁纳,提出了以意义为中心的认知心理学体系,强调跨学科融合,推动了心理学和人类学的整合,探讨意义生成的过程与机制,形成了以意义与叙事为中心的文化心理学。布鲁纳建立的文化心理学通过对叙事实践的研究,探讨文化在经验、记忆和社会行为的形成过程中的作用,不仅促进了心理学和人类学的研究和理论化,还直接影响了教育、医学和法律领域的研究与实践,为理解文化与心智的关系做出了杰出的贡献。     

Interrupted stories, interrupted lives

In attempting to manage their practices efficiently, doctors may not allow seriously ill patients enough time to sort out their feelings and raise important questions. What is at stake here is not information about prognosis and treatments but the very survival of the soul.     

Basic aspects of evolution strategies

Evolution strategies (ESs) are a special class of probabilistic, direct, global optimization methods. They are similar to genetic algorithms but work in continuous spaces and have the additional capability of self-adapting their major strategy parameters. This paper presents the most important features of ESs, namely their self-adaptation, as well as their robustness and potential for parallelization which they share with other evolutionary algorithms.Besides the early (1 + 1)-ES and its underlying theoretical results, the modern ( + )-ES and (, )-ES are presented with special emphasis on the self-adaptation of strategy parameters, a mechanism which enables the algorithm to evolve not only the object variables but also the characteristics of the probability distributions of normally distributed mutations. The self-adaptation property of the algorithm is also illustrated by an experimental example.The robustness of ESs is demonstrated for noisy fitness evaluations and by its application to discrete optimization problems, namely the travelling salesman problem (TSP).Finally, the paper concludes by summarizing existing work and general possibilities regarding the parallelization of evolution strategies and evolutionary algorithms in general.     

A rational approach to career change

Recently, the number of physicians who have been interested in alternative careers has vastly increased. Many physicians express dissatisfaction with clinical practice, but they are uncertain about which nonclinical options are appropriate for them. Pursuing a different career after many years of studying and practicing medicine can seem like an overwhelming task. In this article, the author briefly outlines a decision-making process that can be used in analyzing career options and suggests some careers that have provided challenging opportunities for physicians.