Work and Care Strategies of European Families: Similarities or National Differences?

This paper examines the work and care strategies chosen by full‐time working families with children in Finland, Italy, Portugal and the UK. It asks whether European families in different countries, facing the same problems of balancing employment and childcare responsibilities, respond to their situations in similar ways. An increase in dual‐earner families where both parents work full‐time represents a general employment trend in today's Europe. Also, within families with children, such employment patterns are now more common than they were previously. National differences may therefore not any longer be as marked as often indicated by country‐based surveys. The qualitative data from the SOCCARE Project offer a way to examine this issue. The focal point of the paper is to make a comparative analysis of couples in similar work and care situations. Using their working hours as the common denominator, this paper analyses their daily childcare arrangements and how these are impacted by gender roles, working schedules, flexibility of workplace, income levels, parents’ educational background and availability of care facilities. The paper concludes that European families’ work and care strategies have many similarities whereby national differences may not be as marked as often indicated by contemporary research.     

Trends in inequality in infant mortality in the north of England, 1921–1973, and their association with urban and social structure

Summary.  The paper analyses a time series of infant mortality rates in the north of England from 1921 to the early 1970s at a spatial scale that is more disaggregated than in previous studies of infant mortality trends in this period. The paper describes regression methods to obtain mortality gradients over socioeconomic indicators from the censuses of 1931, 1951, 1961 and 1971 and to assess whether there is any evidence for widening spatial inequalities in infant mortality outcomes against a background of an overall reduction in the infant mortality rate. Changes in the degree of inequality are also formally assessed by inequality measures such as the Gini and Theil indices, for which sampling densities are obtained and significant changes assessed. The analysis concerns a relatively infrequent outcome (especially towards the end of the period that is considered) and a high proportion of districts with small populations, so necessitating the use of appropriate methods for deriving indices of inequality and for regression modelling.     

Beyond attachment theory and therapy: Towards sensitive and evidence-based interventions with foster and adoptive families in distress

Elements of attachment theory have been embraced by practitioners endeavouring to assist foster and adopted children and their parents. Attachment theory articulates the potential risks of experiencing multiple caregivers; emphasizes the importance of close social relationships to development; and recognizes that substitute parents may not always have close relationships with children who have experienced adversities before joining them. Attachment theory offers concerned parents what they believe to be a scientific explanation about their lack of the close, satisfying parent–child relationship they desire. Yet the scientific base of attachment theory is limited both in terms of its ability to predict future behaviours, and especially with regard to its use as the underpinning theory for therapeutic intervention with children experiencing conduct problems. There is a critical need to review the role of attachment theory in child and family services and to consider its place among other explanations for children's disturbing behaviour. An important step towards pursuing alternative approaches is for researchers and practitioners to understand the reasons the attachment paradigm appeals to so many adoptive and foster parents, given the apparent widespread prevalence of attachment‐based interventions. Such understanding might assist in the development of adoption‐sensitive uses of appropriate evidence‐based treatment approaches.     

新形势下对创业教育的初步思考

开展创业教育是新世纪社会经济发展的要求和必然。加强创新创业教育是新世纪经济社会发展的基本要求,具有十分重要的现实意义和深远的时代意义。开展创业教育是培养学生自我创业、自主发展的需要,是实现教育大发展的基本要求,是学校素质教育、创新教育的深入和具体化。创业教育是建立在素质教育基础上的新型人才培养模式,建设具有创新能力的师资队伍是创业教育的基本保证,课程和教材改革是创业教育得以实施的重要环节,加强心理健康教育是实施创业教育的重要保障。     

What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Performance? Dialogue Theory and Performance Budgeting

This article examines the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)in the federal budgeting process. The early evidence on PARTprompts the search for a theory of budgeting that accepts thatperformance information will influence decisions but will notbe used in the same way from decision to decision, as the espousedtheory of performance budgeting suggests. Dialogue theory emphasizesthe ambiguity of performance information and related resourceallocation choices. An exploratory test of dialogue theory isundertaken through an experiment involving graduate studentsassessing PART evaluations. The results illustrate a varietyof ways in which different individuals can examine the sameprogram and, using logical warrants, come to different conclusionsabout performance and future funding requirements.     

贯彻科学发展观,使我校办学从数量增长向质量提高转变

该文研究了高等教育在发展过程中数量和质量之间的关系,提出高等学校的办学规模应追求适当,而提高教育教学质量才是办学追求的根本。要贯彻科学发展观,树立“育人为本”的观念,调动学生的主动性,坚持教学与科研协调发展,培养创新人才;文章还提出高校不仅要遵循教育规律,而且要探索符合中国国情的大众化教育的新规律,培育优秀的师资力量,走教授治学之路;同时,要与时俱进,不断完善人才培养方案,加强管理制度建设,提高教学管理水平,建立高效的监控机制,以评促建,重在建设。     

导师制在理科(生物学)基地学生科研素质培养中的作用

理科(生物学)基地的建设目标,是培养符合国家要求,具有基础扎实、能力强、素质好的生物学基础科学研究和教学人才,而在基地教学中实行导师制是提高人才培养质量的有效途径之一。该文介绍了北京林业大学在理科基地学生中实行导师制的思路、措施和方法,并重点分析了导师制在理科基地人才科研素质培养中所起到的多方面的作用,在此基础上提出了导师制实施过程中急需解决的问题。     

A study of three-dimensional curves

In certain abnormalities of spinal shape, the long axis of the spine moves out of the median sagittal plane, producing both an axial torsion and a lateral deviation out of the usual front-back plane. Clinicians need to be able to assess rapidly and accurately whether or not an individual has such an abnormality. In this paper, we examine several case studies. These are analyzed using some simple summary statistics, and the use of these methods to infer abnormality is demonstrated. Using a simple fitted model for the data, an angular estimate of abnormality is obtained. Empirical measures of abnormality based on the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix are also determined. These methods are applied to a number of individuals for whom the surface spinal profiles have been recorded and who have been assessed as normal or abnormal by clinicians.     

Perfect samplers for mixtures of distributions

Summary. We consider the construction of perfect samplers for posterior distributions associated with mixtures of exponential families and conjugate priors, starting with a perfect slice sampler in the spirit of Mira and co-workers. The methods rely on a marginalization akin to Rao–Blackwellization and illustrate the duality principle of Diebolt and Robert. A first approximation embeds the finite support distribution on the latent variables within a continuous support distribution that is easier to simulate by slice sampling, but we later demonstrate that the approximation can be very poor. We conclude by showing that an alternative perfect sampler based on a single backward chain can be constructed. This alternative can handle much larger sample sizes than the slice sampler first proposed.     

降息政策与储蓄增长

自 1996年来 ,为了刺激消费 ,扩大内需 ,促进经济的复苏与繁荣 ,中国人民银行连续八次降低金融机构人民币存贷款利率 ,但我国储蓄依然居高不下 ,降息的政策效果并不明显。该文认为 ,全球经济萧条是外因 ,而经济主体 ,如居民、企业、银行、政府的行为才是导致降息低效的根本原因 ,因此 ,解决这一现实问题需要全社会共同努力 ,将降息与其它政策配套使用才能行之有效。