The Causes and Consequences of Immigrant Labour in the Construction Sector in Malaysia

Malaysian construction is highly dependant on immigrant labour; immigrants account for nearly 70 per cent of its workforce. Although they have aided the sector's rapid expansion, it has not been without costs. This paper examines the impact of immigrant labour on construction. The main finding is that immigrants, being largely unskilled, did not contribute to skill formation. Instead, they accumulated skills on‐the‐job, which were lost when they returned home. There was no evidence that immigrants displaced domestic workers since they were concentrated in jobs rejected by Malaysians. Furthermore, unlike in earlier periods, legal immigrants were no longer a cheap option, given the regulations governing their employment. They were not used to cut costs per se, but were used because domestic workers were not available in sufficient numbers. Despite the large immigrant presence, the general wage level increased, though admittedly not as rapidly as it might have in their absence. The reliance on immigrant workers has increased the need for supervision and quality control, thereby reducing the savings in cost; nonetheless, immigrants have helped keep costs in check. Surprisingly, rising wages and the continued shortage of labour have not led to a widespread adoption of labour‐saving methods. This is partly because productivity increases have managed to outpace wage increases, though this advantage is petering out. Also, immigrant presence has kept wages, as a proportion of total costs, manageable. The over reliance of the sector on immigrant labour is not desirable, especially since the majority is drawn from one source ‐ Indonesia. Any disruption of supply from this source can undermine the Malaysian economy. To avoid this, Malaysia must vary its source of immigrant labour and intensify efforts to attract domestic workers by improving conditions in construction.     

薏米中微量有机锗测定的研究

依据二甲氧基羟基苯芴酮与锗的显色原理,用分光光度法对薏米中微量锗进行测定.研究了于HAC-NaAC的缓冲体系,在溴化十六烷基三甲铵(CTMAB)存在下,二甲氧基羟基苯芴酮与Ge(Ⅳ)形成红色络合物,其络合物的最大吸收波长为529nm,Ge(Ⅳ)在0-1.0ug/mL范围内符合比尔定律.拟定方法具有较好的选择性,多数金属离子不干扰检测,用于薏米中微量有机锗的测定,该方法简单可靠,并获得满意的分析结果.     

A family of admissible minimax estimators of the mean of a multivariate,normal distribution

Let X has a p-dimensional normal distribution with mean vector θ and identity covariance matrix I. In a compound decision problem consisting of squared-error estimation of θ, Strawderman (1971) placed a Beta (α, 1) prior distribution on a normal class of priors to produce a family of Bayes minimax estimators. We propose an incomplete Gamma(α, β) prior distribution on the same normal class of priors to produce a larger family of Bayes minimax estimators. We present the results of a Monte Carlo study to demonstrate the reduced risk of our estimators in comparison with the Strawderman estimators when θ is away from the zero vector.     

论国家保障各民族的合法权益

新中国坚持马克思主义民族平等、团结的基本原则,确立了各民族共同繁荣发展的根本立场.国家通过立法、司法、民族政策以及其他行政举措等多种方式和途径,保障各民族的合法权益并形成了相关的保障机制.在此过程中,我国各民族获得了国家主人翁的权利和地位,各民族人民的利益得到了比较有效的保护,为维护国家统一、巩固和发展社会主义民族关系、促进各民族共同团结奋斗和共同繁荣发展提供了基本保证.     

余平坦模和余平坦分解

给出了有单位元的环上的余平坦模和余平坦分解概念，得到了一系列结果。     

ODD MAN OUT—THE MEIXNER HYPERGEOMETRIC DISTRIBUTION

Two open problems are described for the hyperbolic secant distribution, as a special case of the more general Meixner hypergeomet-ric distribution. The first concerns the completeness of the family of functions sech θ x , θ≥ 0. The second concerns the characterization of the class of canonical correlation sequences in bivariate distributions with marginals sech θ x , sech θ y. In both cases some partial results are put forward.     

Gambling and the Older Chinese in Canada

In Canada, there is a lack of research on gambling among the older adults from ethnic minority groups, especially the older Chinese. In this study, two research questions were used to examine gambling among the older Chinese: (1) What is the pattern of gambling among the older Chinese in Canada? (2) What are the predictors associated with gambling among the older Chinese in Canada? The data for this study were collected as part of a multi-site study on health and well-being of 2272 older Chinese in Canada. Four main questions related to gambling were used in this study. Among the 2257 participants who answered the questions on gambling, 26.6% of them reported that they gambled. Results of the hierarchical logistic regression analysis showed that being male, having lived in Canada longer, having a higher level of social support, having more service barriers, and having a stronger level of Chinese ethnic identity would increase the probability for an older Chinese to participate in gambling. Conversely, having a post-secondary and above level of education and having a higher level of life satisfaction would reduce one’s probability of gambling. Although city of residency was also significant in predicting gambling, further analysis showed that its effect was actually caused by other factors including services barriers, social support, life satisfaction, Chinese ethnic identity, and education.     

论消费语境下中国电影的文化公平问题

消费社会的商业和文化逻辑推动中国电影专注于符号价值的生产,形成了新的美学形态和营销理念。在大众媒介帮助下,围绕电影的符号消费,一个个具有独特气质的排他性文化团体建立了起来。符号价值冲击着中国电影的大众属性,造成了电影文化生态的失衡,影响了中国电影的文化公平。现实主义电影以内容为王,提供共通的体验,是一个有效的解决策略。     

An Investigation of Quantile Function Estimators Relative to Quantile Confidence Interval Coverage

In this article, we investigate the limitations of traditional quantile function estimators and introduce a new class of quantile function estimators, namely, the semi-parametric tail-extrapolated quantile estimators, which has excellent performance for estimating the extreme tails with finite sample sizes. The smoothed bootstrap and direct density estimation via the characteristic function methods are developed for the estimation of confidence intervals. Through a comprehensive simulation study to compare the confidence interval estimations of various quantile estimators, we discuss the preferred quantile estimator in conjunction with the confidence interval estimation method to use under different circumstances. Data examples are given to illustrate the superiority of the semi-parametric tail-extrapolated quantile estimators. The new class of quantile estimators is obtained by slight modification of traditional quantile estimators, and therefore, should be specifically appealing to researchers in estimating the extreme tails.