Tweeting about emergency: A semantic network analysis of government organizations’ social media messaging during Hurricane Harvey

While social media like Twitter have been increasingly adopted by public-sector organizations, it remains less explored as to how government and emergency management (EM) organizations use these platforms to communicate with the public in response to emerging natural disasters. Extending the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) to the realm of social media, this study examines the emerging semantic networks from 67 government and EM organizations’ official tweets during Hurricane Harvey over a three-week period. It identifies how multiple crisis response strategies—including instructing information, adjusting information, and bolstering—are constituted of different issues, actions, and organizational actors before, during, and immediately after the disaster event. Results suggest that government agencies use the strategy of instructing information predominantly before and during the disaster, whereas adjusting information and bolstering strategies are utilized more during post-disaster recovery. The study offers theoretical and practical implications of using a semantic network approach to studying organizational crisis responses.     

Testing spatial randomness based on empirical distribution function: A study on lattice data

In this article, we extended the empirical distribution function based test statistic _Ik$I_k$ of Skaug and Tjostheim [1993. Nonparametric test of serial independence based on the empirical distribution function. Biometrika 80, 591–602] in the time series setting to _Dn$D_n$ for spatial lattice data and derived the asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic _Dn$D_n$ under the null hypothesis of spatial independence. The size and power of the proposed test statistic under conditional autoregressive model (CAR) were simulated. We applied _Dn$D_n$, Moran's I and Geary's c   to the transformed and well-studied sudden infant death syndrome data from North Carolina and found that _Dn$D_n$ produced a much smaller p$p$-value in testing spatial independence.     

中国现代化的社会结构转型与马克思主义实践

各文明体系中社会要素的生长积累具有同步性,但社会要素作用的发挥离不开一定的社会结构.社会结构是联系社会要素和社会形态的中介环节,只有在一定的社会结构中,各种社会要素才能被汇集为一种"力",从而推动社会形态的演进.中国明代在社会要素的积累方面与西方相近,却没有像西方那样转入近现代社会,这一现象只能从社会形式即关系结构中得到解释.马克思主义在中国的实践推动了中国社会结构转型而真正迈入现代化进程.     

心性之学与意义世界

陈来认为,宋明理学之所以成为理学,全在于它形成了一套相对稳定的话语体系。深入细致地研究这一话语体系的形成过程,有利于总结和提炼中国学术思想话语体系的构型特性。杨国荣认为,对心性和体性的关注,构成了理学的重要特点。心性之学分别从人自身的存在和人与对象关系的维度展开了对意义的追寻。向世陵认为,宋代理学所创造的"成性"说奠定了理学的本体范畴,是儒学复兴的最重要理论标志;宋代理学本体论的创立使儒学在理论上真正获得了新生。孔令宏认为,宋明理学对道家、道教的吸收,丰富了儒学的体用合一论和功夫境界论,提升了儒学的哲理思辨水平,充实了儒家的思想体系,促进了儒学的新发展。     

Child learning and family mealtime environment,parenting style and family functioning among preschoolers in Hong Kong

A two-wave longitudinal study on 470 parent–child dyads examined the impact of family mealtime environment, parenting style and family functioning on preschoolers’ (three to six years old) learning. Measures included parent report on parenting style, family functioning, family meal frequency, mealtime television, feeding practice, teacher/parent report of academic competence and individual assessment of preschoolers’ preschool concepts. Family mealtime environment variables were associated with pre-schoolers’ learning, in addition to parenting style and family functioning, after controlling for family income and wave 1 preschoolers’ learning. The results highlighted the importance of family mealtime environment on preschoolers’ learning.     

Understanding ethnic visibility through language use: the case of Taiwan Hakka

This study investigates how the ethnic visibility of Taiwan Hakka is improved through language use. The usage of a unique Hakka symbolic code <nganggiang stiff neck> is focused on. Based on data from the four Taiwan major newspapers, an analysis with text techniques shows that the code emerges along with social-political developments in Taiwan, with its meaning turning from negative to positive connotation. Its frequency is highly correlated with major political events in Taiwan, with peaks during the two or three years before presidential elections. It illustrates semiotic innovation, extending from Hakka to Hakka non-human, to non-Hakka, and to non-Hakka non-human frames. The salient image it creates increases Hakka ethnic visibility and enhances their ethnic identity. A significant implication is that minority ethnic groups can employ a unique symbolic code, empowering it with positive connotation. Through extensive language use, its representation can raise their ethnic visibility and enhance their ethnic identity.     

Social Mobility via academic mobility: reconfigurations in class and gender identities among Asian scholars in the global north

ABSTRACT

Geographic mobility is increasingly perceived worldwide as a key to academic excellence, career advancement and upward social mobility. Drawing on long-term qualitative fieldwork data, this paper interrogates the impact of academic mobility in reconfiguring class and gender identities among students, early professionals and their families from Hong Kong and Indonesia who have studied or received further training in Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. This analysis problematises the crude ‘academic mobility?→?upward social mobility’ formula and considers international academic mobility as a contextual, dynamic and multi-directional process. Through this process social positions and identities of the moving individuals and families are negotiated in an on-going manner as migrants insert into, depart from and re-insert into the various social milieus where their mobility trajectories touch ground. Narratives of interviewees illustrate the complexity and contradictions in class and gender configurations as students move across borders. They show how these individuals are inserted in contrasting social positionings, and experience how a particular social class or gender position carries different connotations. The paper concludes with a few conceptual and methodological reflections.     

Effects of placement point of background music on shopping website

Consumer on-line behaviors are more important than ever due to highly growth of on-line shopping. The purposes of this study were to design placement methods of background music for shopping website and examine the effect on browsers' emotional and cognitive response. Three placement points of background music during the browsing, i.e. 2 min., 4 min., and 6 min. from the start of browsing were considered for entry points. Both browsing without music (no music) and browsing with constant music volume (full music) were treated as control groups. Participants' emotional state, approach-avoidance behavior intention, and action to adjust music volume were collected. Results showed that participants had a higher level of pleasure, arousal and approach behavior intention for the three placement points than for no music and full music. Most of the participants for full music (5/6) adjusted the background music. Only 16.7% (3/18) participants for other levels turn off the background music. The results indicate that playing background music after the start of browsing is benefit for on-line shopping atmosphere. It is inappropriate to place background music at the start of browsing shopping website. The marketer must manipulated placement methods of background music for a web store carefully.