Household Assets,the Role of Government Assistance,and Depression Among Low-Income Families in Shanghai

As China’s economy is rapidly changing from a planned to a capitalist economy, many families find themselves financially struggling. In some cases, conflicting values and attitudes may contribute to mental health challenges such as depression that would lead to further feelings of helplessness and immobilization. Using a random sample of 1006 low-income households from Pudong District of Shanghai, China, this study aims to examine the relationships between household assets, beliefs about government as the primary way to improve economic circumstances and self-reported depressive symptoms. In addition, this study investigates the mediation effects of beliefs that government is the best change agent for improved life circumstances on the relationship between household assets and depression. We found those who indicated that government was the main means for attaining a better life had significantly higher depression levels whereas higher numbers of household assets were associated with lower depression levels. We also found that viewing government as the most important change agent only partially mediated the relationship between household assets and depression (p?<?.001). Findings from this study support anti-poverty policies and social work related practice initiatives aimed at assisting low income families in China, in particular the need to address psychological as well as economic needs.

     

A Data Envelopment Analysis-Based Methodology Adopting Assurance Region Approach for Measuring Corporate Social Performance

Many research papers calculate corporate social performance (CSP) with the net score method, i.e., by subtracting the number of concerns from the number of strengths. Although widely adopted, this method implies, perhaps mistakenly, that each indicator is of equal importance and that however serious the social misconduct a firm may have engaged in, it can be completely offset by some positive social action. The method also implies that a given firm that has done both a lot of harm and a lot of good will have CSP similar to that of another firm that has done little harm and little good. In this study, however, we question the appropriateness of the net score method in terms of its ability to truly reflect CSP and truly identify the real effects of CSP on various characteristics. We therefore propose a data envelopment analysis-based methodology that adopts the assurance region approach for evaluating CSP, through which various CSP indicators are converted into a single composite measure of CSP. Our findings show that our proposed methodology consistently performs better than the net score method in evaluating CSP.

     

Migration and fuel use in rural Zambia

Population and Environment - What is the effect of migration on fuel use in rural Zambia? Opportunities to increase income can be scarce in this setting; in response, households may pursue a...     

欧洲一体化进程中的"反一体化"分析

随着欧洲一体化的演进,反对、抵制一体化的思想与行动一直此起彼伏,反一体化伴随着一体化进程的始终."反一体化"活动主要在国家、政党和民众三个层次上展开,遍及政治、经济、社会文化等领域.其动因主要在于一体化进程对利益的重新分配所引发的复杂利益冲突和传统主权观、民族主义思想与一体化现实之间产生的尖锐对立."反一体化"对一体化进程产生了重要的影响.一方面它是一体化前进的阻力,另一方面又对一体化的发展产生了建设性的影响,使一体化能够相对稳定地向前迈进.反一体化将长期存在,并在欧洲一体化的未来发展中继续发挥自身的作用.     

自然审美作为美学的起点

自然是人类美感的最直接的教师,自然审美是人类审美活动的根部和源头。从自然美到社会美到艺术美,这是美学研究中一个不可逆转的思路。应重新认识自然美的特性并充分重视其独特价值,确立自然美在美学中的本源地位。     

和谐社会视野下的政府危机管理体制——由松花江水污染事件引发的思考

以和谐社会建设理论为视野,阐述了政府危机管理的含义,在此基础上审视了我国的立法现状,并分析了我国政府危机管理的缺陷,进而加以合理的制度设计,以提高政府的危机管理能力,确保和谐社会的实现。     

Coherent mortality forecasting by the weighted multilevel functional principal component approach

In human mortality modelling, if a population consists of several subpopulations it can be desirable to model their mortality rates simultaneously while taking into account the heterogeneity among them. The mortality forecasting methods tend to result in divergent forecasts for subpopulations when independence is assumed. However, under closely related social, economic and biological backgrounds, mortality patterns of these subpopulations are expected to be non-divergent in the future. In this article, we propose a new method for coherent modelling and forecasting of mortality rates for multiple subpopulations, in the sense of nondivergent life expectancy among subpopulations. The mortality rates of subpopulations are treated as multilevel functional data and a weighted multilevel functional principal component (wMFPCA) approach is proposed to model and forecast them. The proposed model is applied to sex-specific data for nine developed countries, and the results show that, in terms of overall forecasting accuracy, the model outperforms the independent model and the Product-Ratio model as well as the unweighted multilevel functional principal component approach.     

Semiparametric sieve maximum likelihood estimation under cure model with partly interval censored and left truncated data for application to spontaneous abortion

Lifetime Data Analysis - This work was motivated by observational studies in pregnancy with spontaneous abortion (SAB) as outcome. Clearly some women experience the SAB event but the rest do not....     

文化认知中定向思维模式的建构与解构——以中国少数民族文化范式为研究视阈

定向思维模式的建构与解构实际上反映出认知结构的二重性特征,两者在文化认知活动中可互为挹注共存于对立统一关系里。因此,对中国少数民族文化范式的研究,不仅要重视建构之功能催生的符号化文化构成,还应关注解构之功能显现的非常见的文化元素。同时,只有弄清楚定向思维模式的建构与解构在文化认知中的意涵,才能明确定向思维模式的“趋向”和“专注”特点以及“惰化”和“孤立”倾向,从而为牵及民族文化事项的认知固化与迁移提供理论工具并用以指导多元文化实践。