Racial Disparities in Welfare Dependence and Financial Independence: Links to Human Capital,Local Economy,and State Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Policies

This secondary data analysis examined racial disparities in associations betwen welfare dependence/financial independence and human capital, local economy, and state TANF policies. A sample of 6,737 parents was extracted from the public-use data set titled “National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.” Results showed that restrictive TANF policies reduced African Americans’ likelihood of welfare use and increased likelihood of their financial independence. Multinomial logistic results also showed that, among Hispanics, employment growth in neighboring counties promoted welfare use; whereas among Caucasians such growth promoted financial independence. County poverty increased (a) Caucasians’ likelihood of welfare use and (b) Hispanics’ likelihood of being working poor; it decreased Caucasians’ and African Americans’ likelihood of financial independence. Across ethnic groups, education reduced likelihood of welfare use and working poor status; across minority groups, education increased likelihood of financial independence, but among Caucasians it decreased such likelihood. Across ethnic groups, occupational skills hindered dependence and improved odds of employment (regardless of welfare or poverty status). This study concluded the studied TANF policies and job markets were not color-blind. Interventions this study implies include less-restrictive TANF policies, generous support services, TANF staff cultural-competence training, and antidiscrimination rules. Research investigating particular TANF policies’ and services’ effects by ethnicity might prove useful.     

The Intermediate Linkage Between Materialism and Luxury Consumption: Evidence from the Emerging Market of China

The emerging materialism and strong demand for luxury goods in China have attracted a great deal of attention. But the mechanism through which materialism influences luxury consumption remains largely unexplored in the social science literature. This study examines the mediating roles of consumer perceived values as purchase motives in luxury consumption. The mediation effects are tested based on an original survey of 613 participants in eastern China. The results show that the three types of consumer perceived values, namely social, emotional and quality values, mediate the relationship between materialism and luxury purchase intentions. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Wellbeing in China

Partial order methodologies appear as advantageous tools to disclose evaluative trends and developments for time series as, e.g., the fragile states index (FSI). The present study focuses on the variations in the 12 individual indicators of the FSI over the years 2011–2015. The FSI includes in total 178 states and the present study analyzes both the full set of states and a subset comprising only the 28 European Union states. Clear trends are observed. Thus, on a global scale the primary importance of brain drain apparently is turned into group grievance whereas on the European scale the development discloses the increased problems associated with the increasing number of refugees and migrants as well as the declining economic situation in some states. Further the study discloses a series of so-called peculiar states, i.e., states where single indicators values are markedly higher or lower than expected when comparing to the “main stream” of indicator values for the states studied. In all cases the findings were substantiated and verified by available literature.     

三年困难时期非正常死亡人口及其相关问题研究

三年困难时期(1959～1961年)我国非正常死亡3000万人是个值得商榷的观点,必须进行全面系统的考量和原因分析.文章以1955 ～1957年平均死亡人口作为基准,结合1953～1964年死亡漏报及其纠正的状况,可以估算出三年困难时期非正常死亡人口约为400 ～ 500万人.非正常死亡人口在分布上具有较为明显的地域结构、年龄结构以及性别结构上的差异.此外,造成大量非正常死亡的原因非常复杂,难以从单一的因果关系中寻求答案.但种种迹象表明:这批非正常死亡人口是以饥饿死亡类型为主、其他死亡类型为次;以抗灾能力不强引起为主、以地方救灾失误引起为次.尽管非正常死亡几百万人的教训值得反思,但不能抹杀中国政府应对饥荒所做的努力及其取得的成效,更不能借此上纲上线,意图否定新中国前30年的发展.     

Two-agent scheduling of time-dependent jobs

We consider the problem of scheduling deteriorating jobs or shortening jobs with two agents A and B. We are interested in generating all Pareto-optimal schedules for the two criteria: (1) the total completion time of the jobs in A and the maximum cost of the jobs in B, and (2) the maximum cost of the jobs in A and the maximum cost of the jobs in B. We show that all Pareto-optimal schedules for both problems can be generated in polynomial time, whether the jobs are deteriorating or shortening.     

On Motzkin–Straus type results for non-uniform hypergraphs

Recently, some extensions of Motzkin–Straus theorems were proved for non-uniform hypergraphs whose edges contain 1 or r vertices in Gu et al. (J Comb Optim 31:223–238, 2016), Peng et al. (Discret Appl Math 200:170–175, 2016a), where r is a given integer. It would be interesting if similar results hold for other non-uniform hypergraphs. In this paper, we establish some Motzkin–Straus type results for general non-uniform hypergraphs. In particular, we obtain some Motzkin–Straus type results in terms of the Lagrangian of non-uniform hypergraphs when there exist some edges consisting of 2 vertices in the given hypergraphs. The presented results unify some known Motzkin–Straus type results for both uniform and non-uniform hypergraphs and also provide solutions to a class of polynomial optimization problems over the standard simplex in Euclidean space.     

疫情防控背景下高校教学管理改革和创新 ——以黄山学院为例

疫情防控期间,如何实现"停课不停教、停课不停学"是全国教育系统共同面临的任务和挑战.文章概述了疫情防控背景下黄山学院教学管理工作的实施状况,归纳了其实施线上教学的成功经验,进而对疫情防控背景下高校如何进行教学管理改革与创新进行了思考并提出了建议,以期为我国高等院校线上教学工作的开展及教学管理模式的实施提供些许启发.     

转型时期社会发展观探析

中国正处在社会结构的转型时期,提出建立“和谐社会”是社会自身发展的需要,体现了社会发展所追求的价值目标。要实现人与社会的和谐,必须坚持以人为本的核心原则,建立起社会在稳定中实现和谐发展的有效的运行机制。     

试析近代海南黎族地区社会经济快速发展的情况及其原因

本文试图就近代海南黎族地区的社会经济进入快速的发展的问题进行探讨。