楚文化的特点及影响

楚文化是我国古文化的重要一支 ,它是以江汉地区为中心 ,在原始宗教、巫术、神话的沃土中发展起来的一支由楚人创造的具有浓郁地方色彩的开放而多元的南国文化。原始楚文化以神巫性、浪漫性、卓然不屈的文化精神的总体特征 ,对文学加以渗透 ,形成了南楚文学的独特风格 ,为后世中华民族灿烂文化的形成和发展做出了突出贡献     

文学批评理论的双重话语--基于问题意识的再审

作为文学研究的当代知识范型,批评理论在对传统文论的超越中,逐步形成了自己阐释文学的基本思路。新时期以来的中国文论形态却往往从审美关系论域出发,以批评模式对它进行诠释和界说。由此,忽视了贯穿于其中的问题意识与文学研究理论构成之间的对应关联,淡化乃至消解了批评理论的双重性质。正视并阐明当代文学批评理论的话语构成和理论视域,对于当代中国文论更新观念形貌、介入本土文学具有重要的意义。     

中国C2C电子商务网站的用户体验

通过学生用户试用在两个不同文化背景下设计出来的C2C电子商务网站——淘宝网和Ebay易趣,并进行初次网上购物体验活动,以及对测试后满意度问卷的分析,结果显示:在用户决定购买的过程中,网站概念/功能的传递和表达对用户的影响最大,它们会影响到用户的初次购买决定;而流程的跳转以及交互行为的不平衡会对用户的购买过程造成影响;对用户初次购物总体评价影响最大的是功能满足。两个网站的系统可用性与界面设计不能决定用户的总体评价,但却会影响到用户对网站的感觉。因此,创建一个对用户有用、好用和想用的购物网站就必须要满足功能、交互以及冲击三个层次的要求。     

When difference creates dissonance: understanding the ‘engine’ of intercultural learning in study abroad

Why do some study abroad students improve their intercultural skills, while others revert to less sophisticated ways of making sense of cultural difference? Both intercultural competence theory and transformative learning theory attempt to explain why student intercultural learning occurs, but they only provide partial answers. Building on our previous study assessing intercultural competence in a 2015 field school in India, this article applies the concept of cognitive dissonance to explain the process behind intercultural learning. In the context of study abroad, students experience cognitive dissonance when they encounter cultural differences or similarities that confound previously held expectations about culture. Adapting Maertz, Hassan, and Magnusson’s cognitive dissonance resolution framework, we employ qualitative analysis of students’ written reflections to show how the resolution of cognitive dissonance could act as the ‘engine’ of intercultural learning.     

Named social workers – better social work for learning disabled people?

In 2016, the Department of Health in England announced that it would pilot the role of Named Social Worker. We chose to be part of the pilot because we regularly witness too many people’s lives being defined by restrictions imposed by professionals. Erroneous associations between the concepts of risk and danger have become the norm in how learning disabled people’s decision-making is perceived and managed. However, we believe social workers educated in the social model of disability and grounded more generally in disability studies offer an alternative perspective. The pilot is an opportunity to test our hypothesis that social work practice rooted in social model thinking can successfully challenge oppressive practice and disabling barriers, thus providing the opportunity for social workers to genuinely be ‘servants not masters’ in the lives of disabled people.     

基于突发群体事件预防的高校网络舆情管理

高校的稳定对于社会的稳定具有重要意义。从国际和国内经验来看,移动互联网改变了高校的网络舆情环境,因而给突发群体事件的预防及高校的稳定带来了新的挑战。移动互联网下的高校网络舆情影响力、参与积极性、突发性及冲击力都大大提升,针对其进行的管理呈现有效处置周期更短、官方舆论引导能力更弱、管控复杂程度增加且容易出现群体极化行为等特点,高校应从组织管理体系、线下沟通机制、舆情信息处理机制、危机应急处理机制、网络舆情管理队伍、网络道德文化等多个方面进行综合治理,从而改善高校网络舆情管理,更好地预防突发群体事件的发生。     

Trends in bird species richness,abundance and biomass along a tropical urbanization gradient

Impacts of urbanization on biodiversity are commonly studied using urbanization gradients which provide a space-for-time substitution in estimating consequences of urban expansion. Rates of urbanization and human population growth are high in tropical countries of the developing world, which also hold most of the world’s biodiversity hot-spots, yet few studies have considered biodiversity trends along urban gradients in these regions. Bird communities across a gradient of nine sites in Uganda, from the city centre of Kampala to outlying rural locations, were studied over a six year period. These sites were ordered along an urbanization gradient using Principle Components Analysis based on habitat variables estimated at each site. Bird species richness showed a decrease from rural to urban sites, a trend especially evident in forest birds. There was no clear pattern in total abundance, total biomass or biomass per individual along the gradient. However, this latter result was heavily influenced by a colony of Marabou Storks at one site. When this species was omitted, there was evidence of a positive trend with urbanization, showing that as species richness decreased, the bird community was increasingly dominated by larger species with increasing urbanization, which were mainly scavengers able to exploit human refuse. These results provide further support for the negative impacts of urbanization on species richness, but also demonstrate trends in abundance and biomass are variable across different regions. In particular, the increasing dominance of larger species in urban areas may be relevant to certain geographic and/or socioeconomic contexts.     

Elevated phosphorus: dynamics during four years of green roof development

Green roofs are emerging engineered ecosystems that provide multiple benefits, but many are constructed with nutrient-rich substrate and have been found to leach out high levels of phosphorus (P) in runoff. It is unclear, however, how long green roofs act as sources of P or what mechanisms are responsible for these net losses. We measured P concentrations in runoff water over 4 years from a 1–5 year old extensive green roof in Cincinnati, OH, USA, produced a model to predict runoff P levels into the future, and validated predictions using runoff from 2 nearby extensive green roofs. P concentrations in runoff from the focal green roof were on par with heavily fertilized agroecosystems and displayed strong seasonal dynamics and a rapid decline over the 4-year study. Runoff measurements and changes in substrate P content over a 2-year period were used to estimate a mass balance for green roof P. P loss from the substrate was substantial (4.55 ± 2.3 g P/m²/yr), but only a small portion of the loss was attributable to leaching of P in runoff (0.19–0.65 g P/m²/yr). Missing P may be attributed to a combination of plant uptake and altered P form and binding strength, but further research is needed to precisely identify the mechanisms of P depletion. Our results also suggest that these and similar extensive green roofs are likely to act as environmentally significant sources of P for 10 or more years following roof installation, highlighting the need for reductions in initial substrate P content.     

The Methuselah Effect: The Pernicious Impact of Unreported Deaths on Old-Age Mortality Estimates

We examine inferences about old-age mortality that arise when researchers use survey data matched to death records. We show that even small rates of failure to match respondents can lead to substantial bias in the measurement of mortality rates at older ages. This type of measurement error is consequential for three strands in the demographic literature: (1) the deceleration in mortality rates at old ages; (2) the black-white mortality crossover; and (3) the relatively low rate of old-age mortality among Hispanics, often called the “Hispanic paradox.” Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men matched to death records in both the U.S. Vital Statistics system and the Social Security Death Index, we demonstrate that even small rates of missing mortality matching plausibly lead to an appearance of mortality deceleration when none exists and can generate a spurious black-white mortality crossover. We confirm these findings using data from the National Health Interview Survey matched to the U.S. Vital Statistics system, a data set known as the “gold standard” (Cowper et al. 2002) for estimating age-specific mortality. Moreover, with these data, we show that the Hispanic paradox is also plausibly explained by a similar undercount.     

Women’s attitudes towards the medicalization of childbirth and their associations with planned and actual modes of birth

Problem

Rates of medical interventions in childbirth have greatly increased in the Western world.