《本草经集注》所载“陶注”中的知识类型、药产分布与北方药物的输入

陶弘景集注古代药学知识的意义,在中国本草学的发展历程上,乃是承先启后;在医疗史的研究范畴里,则是反映相关知识在特定时空背景下的变革。中世以下的批评者们,大多着眼于知识本体的正误,他们虽然推崇陶弘景在文本体例上的贡献,但却对陶注的内容多所抨击,认为其有悖博物宗旨。不过,换个角度来看,陶氏的注文,其实正适足以反映历史变迁,对医学与医疗所产生的影响。在这个视野之下,陶注本身就是一种因应外在环境变动而产生的知识集成。因为半壁江山,影响的不止是政治、经济、社会与文化,还包括了药学的体质,以及药学中有关药物基原与产地的信息重整。     

The effects of environmental stressors on the mortality of the oldest old male population in Hong Kong, 1977–2006

Although age–sex-specific mortality rates were decreasing over the years, such a trend was not observed for the male population aged 85 or above (the oldest old) in Hong Kong. Despite literature suggesting that environmental stressors were associated with higher mortality, the adverse effects of socioeconomic and political events were seldom included. Hence, this study explored the relationship between environmental stressors covering adverse weather conditions as well as key socioeconomic and political events and fluctuations in the oldest old mortality rates in Hong Kong during the period 1977 to 2006. The oldest old mortality rates in Hong Kong were observed to have a likelihood of being associated with these environmental stressors. Furthermore, men appeared to be more susceptible to these risk factors than did women. More care and attention should be given to the oldest old men, in particular, during periods of socioeconomic or political upheavals. A cohort study would be useful to study these stressors in greater detail.     

“审美性”与“体贴”——论《红楼梦》的女性文化意涵

<红楼梦>是中国最具性别反省向度的一部小说,本文从观察小说大观园女儿国中的群体生命面向的特色,以及此中人们之间的关系这两个层面入手,并参之以西方女性主义关怀伦理学的观点,以呈现女性文化的特色.<红楼梦>所构建的"女性文化",呈现了一个"审美"的生命面向,此中人的存在或者是从事的活动,都带着一种当下的、偶兴的,以及充满意趣的审美性.他们也用这样的美感来观照自己与他人,所以,群聚本身并不明显地通向一个具有如传统儒家价值的目标意义.而也在这样的审美特质上,他们彼此之间也发展了一种超越功利性与实用性的"体贴"关系.在这种关系里,他们有别於父权的上下名位序列的关系,而构作了一个平面网络关系,彼此之间互为主体,当他们以对方为主体而全心挹注在对方身上时,温暖的情谊便在其中流动.<红楼梦>呈现的女性文化对比著男性文化总带有较多的理想色彩,因为那是一个超越了名位阶级的人人为主体的平等关系,以及不带功利与道德价值判定的审美世界.自然,我们也可从中解读出文本中对於传统男性文化的反省,以及对於女性文化的向往.     

西北地区微型社会可持续发展研究

本文基于近年来可持续发展研究的理论进展和作者田野调查资料的分析结果,提出微型社会可持续发展研究的概念,并初步讨论了其内涵和初步的研究方法.     

从知识的边际性看高校人才培养方式的变革

作者认为 ,个人才能主要取决于知识结构 ,而非知识总量。教师的使命是向学生传授超边际知识和边际知识 ,淘汰负边际知识。为了向社会输送合格的人才 ,高校的管理者与教育者必须转变观念 ,树立起 :差别性的知识观、考核观和全面的人才观     

UNDERSTANDING THE MACROECONOMIC IMPACT OF ILLIQUIDITY SHOCKS IN THE UNITED STATES

In this paper, we empirically investigate the role of stock market illiquidity shocks, stemming from Amihud's illiquidity measure, in explaining U.S. macroeconomic fluctuations from 1973 to 2018. We find that the impact of illiquidity shocks on economic activity is substantial, and historical decomposition analysis shows that cumulative illiquidity shocks were an essential contributor to the prolonged economic slump of the Great Recession. Moreover, our identified illiquidity shocks represent a distinct source of macroeconomic instability. This suggests that illiquidity shocks, measured by the stock price impacts, may contain more information than other types of shocks in recent studies, such as financial shocks and uncertainty shocks. (JEL C32, E32)     

Impact of finance on growth: Does it vary with development levels or cyclical conditions?

Financial systems are complex and may support economic growth differently at various stages of economic development. This study of 90 countries extends the financial development-economic growth literature by using four proxies of financial development (banking, stock market, bond market and insurance), and considering a country’s level of economic development, on both a full and pre-global crisis sample. As expected financial markets have different effects on growth where the level of economic development vary. Policy makers should find that the insurance sector offers the most benefit for economic growth at all levels of development. Stock markets promote growth for middle income countries. Similarly bond markets promote growth with middle and high income countries. Some bond market and stock market results differed in the pre-crisis sample. Policies which promote trade but limit other areas such as inflation, government consumption and crises, should also support growth.     

Presenteeism and health over time among Chinese employees: The moderating role of self-efficacy

The aim of this study was two-fold: first, to examine both the immediate and the lasting effects of presenteeism on health; second, to explore the moderating effect of self-efficacy on the presenteeism-health relationship in a Chinese context. We employed a two-wave study design in which presenteeism, health (i.e. physical health, mental health and exhaustion), and self-efficacy were assessed at Time 1; health was measured again at Time 2 three months later. We surveyed a diverse sample of 345 full-time Chinese employees working in Taiwan and mainland China. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that presenteeism over the previous six months was negatively related to employees' physical health, mental health and exhaustion at Time 1. However, we found no association between presenteeism and health at Time 2, after controlling for the baseline level of health, indicating that presenteeism may not have a lasting effect. Self-efficacy was found to moderate the relationships between presenteeism and all three aspects of health at Time 2, suggesting that for some individuals presenteeism may not on balance be a bad thing. The study sheds light on the association between presenteeism and health. The findings on self-efficacy also extend the literature to incorporate individual characteristics in the presenteeism context.     

Does smoking have a causal effect on weight reduction?

This study examines the relationship between smoking and body mass index (BMI) with a simultaneous equations system allowing for censoring and endogeneity of the number of cigarettes smoked, which alleviates simultaneity bias caused by unobserved heterogeneity and expansion bias by censoring in the regressor. The results suggest smoking may not have a strong long-term causal effect on body weight after controlling for the endogeneity. The negative relationship between smoking and BMI reported in the literature is potentially attributable to the aforementioned biases and should be interpreted with caution. The statistical procedure developed can be useful in other applications with a censored endogenous regressor.

Exponentially weighted moving average control charts for three-level products

In this paper, exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts for multinomial data are developed with a three-level classification scheme. The lower and upper control limits of the proposed EWMA control chart are evaluated using Markov chain approximation. Compared with the three-level Shewhart control chart, numerical results indicate that the proposed EWMA control chart is relatively sensitive to small shifts in a three-level multinomial process. A figure and a table are provided for practitioners to select the value of chart limit coefficient that gives the desired in-control average run length.