Home Environment and Its Relation with Quality of Life of Older People

In this cross-sectional study, we tested the relationship between sociophysical environment, quality of life (QOL), and perceived social support among elderly in Iran. The sample includes 128 participants recruited in the city of Shahrekord, Iran. We measured Evaluation of Older People Living Environment (EVOLVE); Control, Autonomy, Self-realization and Pleasure scale (CASP-19) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) tools respectively, through home-based observation and interview. A significant relationship was found between several domains of home environment, QOL, and perceived social support. The interaction effect of the home environment and gender in relation to QOL and perceived social support was statistically significant. Our results support that the home physical environment may not be considered a strong predictor of QOL among the Iranian elderly.     

NGO Strategies in an Authoritarian Context,and Their Implications for Citizenship: The Case of the People’s Republic of China

This study argues that different cities in China have different resource environments available for NGOs. Organizations react to these resource environments by constructing appropriate resource strategies, which in turn shape the characteristics and structures of the NGOs of that city. It further examines how these characteristics and structures influence the construction and performance of citizenship in an authoritarian environment. Specifically, some types of NGOs encourage Chinese citizens to be passive, while others offer a model for people to actively engage with social issues. This is aptly demonstrated in an analysis of NGOs operating across four cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Kunming, and Nanjing—which reveals three different types of resource environments and behavioral models for NGOs. We subsequently discuss the implications of each model for citizen engagement.     

Revisiting Fiat Regime’s Attainability of Shari’ah Objectives and Possible Futuristic Alternatives

Maqasid of Shari'ah is a millennium old theory on the higher objectives of Islamic divine law. As the discipline of Islamic economics and finance grew in politico-economic importance in the past three decades, a cathartic trend has emerged among Muslim experts to realign economic and financial practices with not merely the minimum legal requirements of religion but also the wisdom and crucial objectives of Shari'ah. An expositive example of this is the monetary economics debate of a Shari'ah consonant currency. Though vast majority of religious clerics have approbated fiat and paper currencies in strict legal terms since the 1980s, a revisionist movement since the mid-1990s seeks to counter it—some going as far as indorsing reversion to gold and silver coinage of medieval Islamic epoch of affluence. Unlike orthodox fiqhi (strict jurisprudentialism) approach that involves legalese with little leeway, Maqasid approach concerns itself with the spirit of the law. This paper operates in the exciting laboratory of Maqasidic framework to appraise the multitudinous role of fiat currency in protecting economic, political, and social public interests, prevention of harm, promotion of egalitarianism, and attainment of ultimate utopic vision of theological and spiritual demands in Shari'ah. The paper contributes, theoretically, by introducing several moral-philosophical arguments against fiat’s compatibility with Shari'ah, and, practically, by prognosticating the future course of discourse in light of advancements in technological innovations—including nascent crypto-currencies.     

Professors,Ideology and Housework

This paper presents, for the first time, multivariate analyses of Canadian national data and tests the relationship between class-based egalitarianism and housework for married and cohabiting male and female university professors in 2000. Consistent with evidence in the general population, gender accounts for more variation in housework than a host of other predictors (i.e., class- and gender-based ideology, institutional contexts and resources, available time, presence of children, age, minority racial status, and religiosity). Nevertheless, these forces play important roles in increasing or decreasing domestic labor contributions of both male and female academics. Among these, professors who possess class-based egalitarian views do more housework, and egalitarianism increases domestic labor contributions of males and decreases that of females.     

The sensitivity of income polarization

This study looks at polarization and its components’ sensitivity to assumptions about equivalence scales, income definition, ethical income distribution parameters, and the income accounting period. A representative sample of Danish individual incomes from 1984 to 2002 is utilised. Results show that polarization has increased over time, regardless of the applied measure, when the last part of the period is compared to the first part of the period; primary causes being increased inequality (alienation) and faster income growth among high incomes relative to those in the middle of the distribution. Increasing the accounting period confirms the reduction in inequality found for shorter periods, but polarization is virtually unchanged, because income group identification increases. Applying different equivalence scales does not change polarization ranking for different years, but identification ranks are affected. The welfare state considerably reduces income polarization and inequality, but at the expense of some more identification.      

The matched pair sign test using bivariate ranked set sampling for different ranking based schemes

Bivariate rank set sample (BVRSS) matched pair sign test is introduced and investigated for different ranking based schemes. We show that this test is asymptotically more efficient and more powerful than its counterpart sign test based on a bivariate simple random sample (BVSRS) for different ranking schemes. The asymptotic null distribution and the efficiency of the test are derived. Pitman’s asymptotic relative efficiency is used to compare the asymptotic performance of the matched pair sign test using BVRSS versus using BVSRS in all ranking cases. For small sample sizes, the bootstrap method is used to estimate P-values. Numerical comparisons are used to gain insight about the efficiency of the BVRSS sign test compared to the BVSRS sign test. Our numerical and theoretical results indicate that using any ranking scheme of BVRSS for the matched pair sign test is more efficient than using BVSRS.     

Estimation of the mean of the exponential distribution using moving extremes ranked set sampling

Moving Extremes Ranked Set Sampling (MERSS) is a useful modification of Ranked Set Sampling (RSS). Unlike RSS, MERSS allows for an increase of set size without introducing too much ranking error. The method is considered parametrically under exponential distribution. Maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), and a modified MLE are considered and their properties are studied. The method is studied under both perfect and imperfect ranking (with error in ranking). It appears that these estimators can be real competitors to the MLE using the usual simple random sampling (SRS).