Work and Family Role Strain Among University Employees

This paper analyzes the determinants of work and family role strain among university employees with data from a survey of faculty and staff of a public university in the Western U.S. The results indicate that difficulties caring for children and elderly dependents are the primary causes of work and family role strain in the family domain, while dissatisfaction with resources and perceived unfair criticism are primary in the work domain. The predictors of work and family role strain are similar for faculty and staff, and for men and women, with one exception: Having a supportive spouse or partner reduces work and family role strain much more for women than it does for men. Implications for university personnel policy are discussed.     

The Cypriot Issue in the Current European Geopolitical Order: Towards a Final Resolution?

The island of Cyprus was divided more than 40 years ago, in 1964, and until now a UN peace-keeping force, the UNFICYP, has been present on the territory to facilitate contacts between both communities, the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. All the attempts of negotiations during these 40 years have failed, but the newly elected Greek Cypriot President Christofias has reopened a peace dialogue with the Turkish leader Talat, a first step towards reunification. The solution of the Cypriot issue is strictly tied to Turkey’s accession to European Union and it will continue to be an obstacle until its resolution that could actually be reached within 2008. In this way, Turkey will increase its role in the region, creating a new asset in the balance of power of the Central Asian-Mediterranean region.      

Between transnationalism and assimilation: Polish parents’ upbringing approaches in Belfast,Northern Ireland

Drawing on one-year-long ethnographic study this paper deals with parenting strategies of Polish migrants in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It first provides a general overview of the context for migration in Northern Ireland. It then introduces the theoretical framework for this study, drawing on scholarly debates on acculturation and indicating the gaps in scholarship on Polish migration. Following this, upbringing strategies of Polish parents are examined with particular focus on questions of transnationalism and assimilation. Next, the dynamic and processual nature of these strategies is emphasized. Methods used in this paper are in-depth interviews and participant observation.     

Fragility index of block tailed vectors

Financial crises are a recurrent phenomenon with important effects on the real economy. The financial system is inherently fragile and it is therefore of great importance to be able to measure and characterize its systemic stability. Multivariate extreme value theory provide us such a framework through the fragility index ( 11, 7 and 8). Here we generalize this concept and contribute to the modeling of the stability of a stochastic system divided into blocks. We will find several relations with well-known tail dependence measures in the literature, which will provide us immediate estimators. We end with an application to financial data.     

Cultural tourism and temporary art exhibitions in Italy: a panel data analysis

The main aim of this work is to study the relationship between cultural tourism and temporary art exhibitions by means of a panel data analysis. In literature, the capability of cultural attractions, e.g. art exhibitions, of increasing the tourist flow has not been investigated yet and we start to fill this gap. Our data set consists of monthly observed variables on 52 Italian provinces over the period 2003–2007. Our response variable is the amount of hotel arrivals and the set of covariates includes the amount of visitors of temporary exhibitions of ancient, modern and contemporary art plus a set of variables that contribute to tourist arrivals, like the kind of destination, the attraction capability of each province and so on. Of particular interest is to discover the art sector that has the strongest influence on the tourist flow towards Italy by keeping into account both the temporal dynamic and the heterogeneity of the Italian provinces. To this aim, we discuss the static and dynamic error component regression models from both the theoretical and practical point of view. The estimated two-way fixed effects regression models suggest that all the three sectors contribute to the tourist flow but in a quite different fashion. On the basis of our analysis we derive some indications for the policy maker in the field of cultural tourism.     

On left-truncating and mixing Poisson distributions

ABSTRACT

The distributions obtained by left-truncating at k a mixed Poisson distribution, denoted kT-MP, and those obtained by mixing previously left-truncated Poisson distributions, denoted M-kTP, are characterized by means of their probability generating function. The main consequence is that every kT-MP distribution is a M-kTP distribution, but not the other way around.     

From myth of return to return fantasy: a psychosocial interpretation of migration imaginaries

By referring to the myth of return, migration literature has focused mainly on sociopolitical explanations, neglecting intersubjective dynamics. This paper operates a switch from myth of return to fantasy. This allows the analysis to be detached from the return speculation’s outcome. It also recognises the cross-generational endurance of return-thinking as functional to the process of identity-building as part of a migrant’s search for well-being. Three British Pakistani migration stories will illustrate how return fantasies are not necessarily a symptom of disengagement with the host society, but are part of a common way human beings have to imagine possible futures for themselves and make sense of their present. Fantasies have the potential to create a virtual transitional space where the individual can re-elaborate experiences in a mode that is safer than the one of reality and may have a positive effect on normalising one’s migration experience.     

On the Ukrainian Cinematic Tradition,the Dovzhenko Film Studio,and Ivan Mykolaichuk

Abstract

This article discusses the Ukrainian cinematic tradition as established by Oleksandr Dovzhenko in the 1920s and 1930s and revived at the Kyiv Film Studio during the short-lived renaissance of Ukrainian cinema between 1964 and 1972. The author focuses on the three figures that led national cinema out of its provincial dead end: the film directors Volodymyr Denysenko and Sergei Paradzhanov, and the actor Ivan Mykolaichuk. The author discusses their films Son [The Dream, 1964] and Tini zabutykh predkiv [Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1964] as best representing the turn from theatrical adaptations of literary classics to their creative cinematic rethinking. Mykolaichuk’s acting style matched this new trend perfectly because he was a carrier of the folk tradition that the two directors were seeking to harness for new ways of artistic expression.