A Comparison of Gambling by Minnesota Public School Students in 1992, 1995, and 1998

The purpose of this study was to compare rates of gambling among Minnesota public school students between 1992, 1995, and 1998. The three samples included 75,806 students in the 9th and 12th grades in 1992; 73,897 9th and 12th grade students in 1995; and 78,564 9th and 12th grade students in 1998. Students were administered the Minnesota Student Survey, a 121-item, anonymous, self-administered, paper-and-pencil questionnaire that inquires about multiple behavioral domains, including gambling behaviors. The same questionnaire, with minor revisions to the gambling items, was administered in 1992, 1995, and 1998 to students in their classrooms by the Minnesota Department of Education. The results showed two opposite trends. On the one hand, fewer students gambled in 1998 than in 1995 and 1992. On the other hand, there was a small, but growing number of 12th grade students who gambled frequently. In terms of trends over time for specific games, the lottery showed a significant decline in the number of 9th grade students who played at all. There was also a significant increase in the number of 12th grade students who played the lottery weekly or more often. The findings that frequent lottery gambling has increased among 12th grade students and that underage gambling continues among these students, are both cause for concern. This is the first generation of youth to be exposed to widespread accessability to legalized gambling venues and gambling advertising. Legalized gambling may be a new "rite of passage" for some of today's youth. It will be important to continue to monitor youth gambling and to provide information and resources to assist youth in making healthy decisions about their gambling behavior.     

$7.8 Billion for Everglades Restoration: Why Do Environmentalists Look So Worried?

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, enacted in 2000, is a $7.8 billion federal/state investment in restoring the Florida Everglades ecosystem. The plan is a negotiated compromise between divergent interests in south Florida and promises to provide water and flood control for urban and agricultural users while maintaining a priority commitment to the natural system when allocating water produced by the 30-year project. The environmental community calls for independent scientific review of un-tested technologies, early and substantial hydrologic benefits to the remaining Everglades, including Everglades National Park, and strong programmatic regulations of the federal project to ensure that ecological restoration remains its primary purpose in spite of inherently conflicting interests at the state and local level.     

略论西部大开发中的环境问题

在西部大开发过程中,人们要树立可持续发展的战略思想,应通过合理的资源开发和利用,解决环境问题,但不能走"先污染后治理"的弯路。西部大开发不仅是西部人的义务,也是全国人民的共同命运之所在。     

Fire Risks in Oil Refineries: Economic Analysis of Camera Monitoring

A probabilistic method is presented to evaluate the economic value of fire monitoring by closed circuit TV camera in petroleum refineries. The proposed model is restricted to the analysis of risk reduction in an area where fires can be caused either by pump failure or by failure of valves and lines. The benefits come from reducing the time during which the fire grows undetected. Fire growth and expected values of losses are analyzed by a Markov model that includes five phases: (1) active undetected growth, (2) detection, (3) fire growth at the beginning of the firemen's intervention, (4) fire control, and (5) fire extinction. The results (e.g., the expected net present value of the investment) show that the proposed monitoring investment is attractive for an illustrative example.     

Contemporary Conceptions of Environmental Risk: Implications for Resource Management and Policy

Recent theoretical development in environmental sociology has focused on the concept of risk. Macro- and middle-range theoretical conceptualizations relevant to understanding environmental risk and resource depletion have emerged from Europe and the United States. We review five theoretical approaches to the environment–society relationship and identify convergent characteristics relevant for resource management in the modern world. These characteristics suggest goals for resource management should include expanded discursive systems, a more informed public and building institutional trust.     

论消费模式与环境伦理

面对全球积重难返的生态危机 ,人类行为扮演了重要角色。在全球性的资本主义生产方式带来的消费模式的示范作用下 ,有限的资源遇到了无限的欲求 ,人类与自然的紧张对峙当成必然 ,消费成其核心。为此 ,要倡言一种为寻求人类共同繁荣和未来持续发展的环境伦理 ,以摆脱人类生存的困境。     

A novel approach based on multiple correspondence analysis for monitoring social networks with categorical attributed data

In in most cases, the distribution of communications is unknown and one may summarize social network communications with categorical attributes in a contingency table. Due to the categorical nature of the data and a large number of features, there are many parameters to be considered and estimated in the model. Hence, the accuracy of estimators decreases. To overcome the problem of high dimensionality and unknown communications distribution, multiple correspondence analysis is used to reduce the number of parameters. Then the rescaled data are studied in a Dirichlet model in which the parameters should be estimated. Moreover, two control charts, Hotelling’s T² and multivariate exponentially weighted moving average (MEWMA), are developed to monitor the parameters of the Dirichlet distribution. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated through simulation studies in terms of average run length criterion. Finally, the proposed method is applied to a real case.     

中国特色网络文化语境下网络公共空间的建构与升级——对人民网“强国论坛”的历史回顾与多维思考

网络文化的特性促进了网络公共空间的建构。中国特色的网络文化语境,赋予公共空间新的价值内涵与职责担当。本文在研究网络公共空间建构机制的基础上,旨在对其提出升级完善之策,以求网络公共空间能在监测环境、引导舆论及传达民意等方面发挥出具有更大价值的建设性作用。     

池田大作环境正义观

从正义的视角来审视当今世界的环境问题是当代环境伦理学的新进展。池田的环境正义观认为,必须从世界范围来看待当今世界的环境危机,应当为提高发展中国家的幸福作出贡献;要把消除全球贫困与拯救世界环境危机联系起来解决;要充分发挥妇女的独特作用,提升女性的地位,绝对是解决地球环境问题的关键;要把享用环境作为一种新的人权来看待,从生命尊严的高度来审视环境问题。