Infant mortality rates: time trends and fractional integration

This paper examines the existence of time trends in the infant mortality rates in a number of countries in the twentieth century. We test for the presence of deterministic trends by adopting a linear model for the log-transformed data. Instead of assuming that the error term is a stationary I(0), or alternatively, a non-stationary I(1) process, we allow for the possibility of fractional integration and hence for a much greater degree of flexibility in the dynamic specification of the series. Indeed, once the linear trend is removed, all series appear to be I(d) with 0<d<1, implying long-range dependence. As expected, the time trend coefficients are significantly negative, although of a different magnitude from those obtained assuming integer orders of differentiation.     

Confronting the “F” Word: The Effects of Gender,Ambiguity, and Individual Difference Variables on Non-Targets’ Confrontation of Heterosexist Comments

The present study used an experimental setting to examine individual and situational variables that influence the confronting of heterosexist remarks by non-target heterosexuals. College student participants (n = 120) responded to a heterosexist comment made in an online setting in which the ambiguity of the heterosexist remark was manipulated. Results indicated that the effect of the ambiguity of the comment on confronting behavior was moderated by individual differences in optimism. Confronting was also affected by sexual prejudice and experience with gay and lesbian individuals. In addition, females confronted more often and more strongly than males, especially following negative affective responses to the comment.     

Shanghai Baby : Negotiating Youth Self-Identity in Urban China

Shanghai Baby has been dismissed as another example of the grunge and shock literature genre emerging from modern Chinese writers. Detractors have described it as 'decadent', 'debauched' and 'pornographic' with the author labelled as a 'slave to Western culture'. However, a closer examination of Zhou Wei Hui's controversial semi-autobiography reveals an adroit social commentary on youth's ongoing negotiation of self-identity in China's complex and rapidly changing social structure. Using the sexual licence found in Western and European literature, Wei's work confronts traditional views on sex, women, family, and youth development. As a result of claims by Wei to speak for the new generation, the book was banned in China, with authorities burning 40,000 copies and instructing the State-run media to never mention the author or the book again because of its sexually charged content. Shanghai Baby highlights a peculiar form of impotence associated with a 'one country two systems' policy with youth willingness to push the parameters of 'acceptable' behaviour and the accompanying guilt (and retribution) when they do. This type of duality affects youth the most because of their willingness to embrace functional individualistic values, which provide them with the basic survival skills in a materialistic world, and their underlying collectivist values, which defines how they should act. As a result, youth have no clear model to follow with the Government encouraging them to be individualistic in some aspects (entrepreneurial and competitive) but not others (self-expression and empowerment). Wei's book is a metaphor for this struggle, highlighting how Chinese youth live their lives somewhere in between, precariously at times and brashly at others, feeling their way towards a functional coexistence of individualistic and collectivist value systems.     

博洛尼亚进程中的意大利大学改革

对于欧洲大学而言,“博洛尼亚进程”是近年来居于首位的大事件。作为最早的倡导国和参与国之一,意大利积极融入博洛尼亚进程,并以此为契机改革弊端日益呈现的大学体制。改革既有历史的原因,也是社会经济发展的必然结果。1 861年意大利统一以来,意大利大学呈现出从精英到大众, 从分权到集权的特征。20世纪80年代以来的改革主要围绕“赋予大学更多自主权”和“提升大学质量”展开。1 999年《捷其诺条例》的颁布对意大利大学改革具有里程碑的意义。之后,意大利大学进行了大刀阔斧的改革 :建立基于“欧洲学分互认体系”的学分制,重置本科课程,引入“3+2”学位体系,引入“Y”体系,颁发文凭补充文件等。这些改革对意大利大学体制产生了深远的影响。