South Africa's 'Rainbow People', National Pride and Happiness

Since the first free elections were held in April 1994, South Africans are popularly known as the 'rainbow people'. The paper inquires whether South Africans who experienced pride in their nation in the first years of democracy also perceived a greater sense of subjective well-being. It is proposed that national pride in post-apartheid South Africa might be fused with or work through self-esteem to lift levels of happiness. The paper traces the history of the new integrating civil religion of the rainbow people and the acceptance of the rainbow as a political symbol of unity among the diverse people of South Africa immediately after the 1994 elections and two years later. The proposed link between national pride and happiness was explored with data from two independent national surveys, the 1995 South African World Values Survey conducted by Markinor and a June 1996 MarkData syndicated omnibus survey. The study found that the appeal of the rainbow as political symbol was inclusive of all groups in society and that feelings of national pride and support for the rainbow ideal were positively associated with subjective well-being. As indicated by intensity and frequency measures, the majority of South Africans were proud of their country and could name a national achievement that inspired pride. Better-off South Africans tended to be happier and more satisfied with life but less proud, while the poor were less happy but fiercely proud of their country. Results suggest that belief in South Africa's 'rainbow nation' ideal may have assisted in boosting happiness during the transition to a stable democracy, thereby preventing alienation among the losers under the new political dispensation. Supporters of the ideal of the rainbow nation were more optimistic than others about the future of their country.     

The Perceptions of Women’s Roles and Progress: A Study of Malay Women

This study examines the general perceptions of women towards their roles, their interpretation of progress, as well as the facilitating factors and barriers to their progress. Questionnaires were distributed to 1,000 Malay women in Malaysia from rural and urban areas, from various age and income groups. Interviews were also carried out on the selected sample. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods of analyses, the results showed that women were perceived to play a strong, influential, and supportive role in their families. The results also showed how women perceive progress. These findings are discussed in relation to culture, socialization, values and norms of the Malay society.     

The Influence of Acculturation on Breastfeeding Initiation and Duration for Mexican-Americans

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to test the hypotheses that (1) similar to other positive pre- and post-natal outcomes, Mexican immigrant mothers are more likely to breastfeed, and to breastfeed longer, than white or Mexican-American mothers; and (2) acculturation accounts for the ethnic/nativity differential in breastfeeding initiation and duration. The results support both hypotheses. Mexican immigrants to the U.S. are much more likely than whites to breastfeed, and to breastfeed longer. Mexican-American mothers, after controlling for background characteristics, have similar initiation and duration to whites. Using expanded acculturation measures developed for this paper, acculturation accounts for some of the difference between whites and Mexican immigrants in breastfeeding initiation, and much of the difference for breastfeeding duration. The results suggest that low levels of acculturation operate to protect Mexican immigrants from choosing to formula-feed, which gives their babies many health advantages, and may be associated with better health outcomes across the life course. The results also suggest that successive generations of Mexican immigrants may abandon breastfeeding, which is deleterious for their infants.     

A new heteroscedastic regression to analyze mass loss of wood in civil construction in Brazil

A heteroscedastic regression based on the odd log-logistic Marshall–Olkin normal (OLLMON) distribution is defined by extending previous models. Some structural properties of this distribution are presented. The estimation of the parameters is addressed by maximum likelihood. For different parameter settings, sample sizes and some scenarios, various simulations investigate the performance of the heteroscedastic OLLMON regression. We use residual analysis to detect influential observations and to check the model assumptions. The new regression explains the mass loss of different wood species in civil construction in Brazil.     

准噶尔汗国灭亡后的佚名史籍与卫拉特人的历史记忆

本文通过解读准噶尔汗国灭亡后卫拉特蒙古佚名氏史家撰写的几篇托忒文史籍,探讨当时卫拉特人对汗国灭亡的反思及对清准战争的历史记忆.几位史家的文本反映了"四卫拉特"这一历史框架的稳定性,以及卫拉特人在政治认同方面的一些变化.     

AN INDEX FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF CONSUMER LOYALTY*

The concept of consumer “loyalty” (i.e., preference for a particular store or brand) is intriguing to marketing scholars and practitioners. Research in this area would be enhanced by the acceptance of an operational measure of consumer loyalty. Loyalty appears to be a tri-dimensional concept; per cent of budget, allocated to the store or brand, amount of switching, and number of alternatives explored have been used to measure loyalty. Consequently, the authors propose a “loyalty index” which combines these three measures. An empirical test of the proposed index showed that the index did discriminate among degrees of consumer loyalty, and was related to consumer psychological characteristics in a manner similar to that of the generally used single measures of consumer loyalty.     

Estimation of the parameters of symmetric stable ARMA and ARMA–GARCH models

In this article, we first propose the modified Hannan–Rissanen Method for estimating the parameters of autoregressive moving average (ARMA) process with symmetric stable noise and symmetric stable generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (GARCH) noise. Next, we propose the modified empirical characteristic function method for the estimation of GARCH parameters with symmetric stable noise. Further, we show the efficiency, accuracy and simplicity of our methods with Monte-Carlo simulation. Finally, we apply our proposed methods to model the financial data.     

MULTICRITERIA OPTIMIZATION: A GENERAL CHARACTERIZATION OF EFFICIENT SOLUTIONS*

In the context of deterministic multicriteria maximization, a Pareto optimal, nondominated, or efficient solution is a feasible solution for which an increase in value of any one criterion can only be achieved at the expense of a decrease in value of at least one other criterion. Without restrictions of convexity or continuity, it is shown that a solution is efficient if and only if it solves an optimization problem that bounds the various criteria values from below and maximizes a strictly increasing function of these several criteria values. Also included are discussions of previous work concerned with generating or characterizing the set of efficient solutions, and of the interactive approach for resolving multicriteria optimization problems. The final section argues that the paper's main result should not actually be used to generate the set of efficient solutions, relates this result to Simon's theory of satisficing, and then indicates why and how it can be used as the basis for interactive procedures with desirable characteristics.     

EFFECTS OF LEARNING ON RESOURCE ALLOCATION DECISIONS

Learning curves have important implications for managerial planning and control. This paper considers the effect of learning on managerial planning models for productmix problems that can be handled by a linear-programming formulation. An approach to incorporate learning effects in the planning model is proposed in this paper. The feasibility and superiority of the proposed approach over the traditional approach are discussed through the use of a linear-programming problem.