西方机械论自然观兴衰之省察

机械论自然观渊源于古希腊的原子论,肇始于文艺复兴时期,勃兴于近代科学革命中,19世纪后半叶受到挑战,20世纪初渐趋衰微,在西方思想史乃至世界思想史上居于统治地位有年,其成就骄人其缺陋也尖锐。由它所产生的并反过来支持它的主客二分论形上学思维也与它一样命运波舛,成为被指摘的现代生态环境危机的深层思想根源。     

Vulnerabilities and risks in population and environment studies

In the study of risks , different sciences use the same category in different ways, each related to its own ontological assumptions. But many of these fields communicate very little with one another. This article seeks to approximate two of these areas of study that have shown similar concerns and that can mutually strengthen one another, namely, geography and demography. Geography was one of the first disciplines to include risk in its environmental dimension and has had broad experience in simultaneously focusing on social and natural dynamics. Demography, on the other hand, faces greater difficulties because only recently has it incorporated the environmental dimension into its scientific scope. Both have brought the concept of vulnerability into their conceptual framework as complementary to that of risk. Geographers understand vulnerability as a more symbiotic form of the relationship between society and nature, whereas demographers give it a strong socioeconomic component. In this regard, the conceptual discussion on risks and vulnerabilities, in its attempt at approximating these two fields, is a way of conceptually advancing and strengthening the different approaches to empirical work, especially in population–environment studies which is the common ground for the dialogue between the two disciplines.

Rural ageing in the United States: Trends and contexts

This paper examines rural population ageing in the United States with a particular focus on the contrasting contexts in which older rural residents live. We compare the characteristics of the older population by rural versus urban residence, and explore challenges and opportunities associated with the ageing of rural baby boomers. The United States is a vast territory, and rural areas in the US are diverse regionally, in poverty and income, principal forms of employment, proximity to metropolitan areas, population size, density and composition, the history of change in these parameters, and a number of other factors that affect the ageing process. Hence, the diversity across rural areas is an important consideration in what affects the well being of rural elderly individuals, as well as the community-level impacts of rural ageing. Further, the characteristics of the older rural population help shape community and rural development outcomes for diverse rural communities. We use data from various US Census Bureau sources, and cite other studies to provide a demographic overview of ageing in the rural United States, and to analyze how this situation differs in varying socio-demographic and regional contexts. In the concluding section, we focus on policy implications associated with rural ageing.     

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.

制度文明的进化与平等的历程

国家文明的重要标志是制度文明,制度文明的道德立法原理乃是平等。人类追求平等的历程,表征为不断创建新的制度文明的历程;反之,人类创建制度文明的历程,同样是不懈探索平等生存发展的历程。平等的观念、思想来源于自然,萌生于人类前文明时期;国家诞生之后,这种自然平等观念、思想演变为等级式平等的制度立法原理;近代革命以来,人类中心主义的人人平等思想,成为现代人类制度的道德立法原理。人本中心论的人人平等的制度文明,从根本上忽视了自然权利、万物生命权利的平等这一存在事实,把人类引上片面征服和掠夺的道路,导致了人与自然之生态链的断裂。当代制度文明应该建立在物权与人权普遍平等的基础上。物权和人权普遍平等,构成了当代人类制度文明创建的道德立法原理。     

自然的城邦和城邦的自然——亚里士多德政治观中的张力分析

亚里士多德通过目的论路径和自然主义的演进方式塑造了具有内在紧张关系的政治观,这种紧张关系主要表现为:目的论路径展示了城邦超越、自足、理想的自然,而自然主义方式蕴涵着城邦现实性、多样化和变动性特征。好人和好公民之间的不一致是亚氏政治观紧张关系的深层体现,哲学沉思是好人(哲学家)最优良的生活方式,而城邦政治是好公民获得幸福生活的根本保障。     

Segregation and protectionism: Institutionalised views of Aboriginal rurality

Rurality is a complex and contested term, with multiple notions and gazes amid calls for theoretical pluralism. In Australia, the spatial categories of ‘remote’, ‘rural’, ‘regional’ and ‘urban’ are applied to places that vary in their distance from an economic and political core and have differing population densities. We argue that natural resources institutions in rural Australia demand an ‘authentic’ performance of Aboriginality that is framed within orthodox and stable constructions of an Indigeneity associated with the remote category. Dominant representations of remote Aboriginal people living on traditional homelands and engaged in ‘traditional’ environmental protection are assumed to hold for all places and transposed when natural resources institutions satisfy compulsory Indigenous engagement. Such institutional requirements for authenticity exclude alternative and multiple Indigenous voices in natural resources management. Rather, Aboriginal people seek engagement across a portfolio of natural resources activities typically found in rural areas (such as mining, grazing, forestry, water allocation planning, and natural resources service delivery and enterprise development), and not just isolated in natural and cultural heritage conservation. This broad participation would more completely match their expressed aspirations and the multiple lived realities of their fluid and networked rural worlds. Using the rural town of Eidsvold in Australia as a case study, we discuss the findings of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with Indigenous people at regional natural resources management meetings and at ‘home’ in Eidsvold. Rather than a generic institutional approach, a place-based approach to understanding the complex ruralities of Aboriginal people is needed.     

How Sunday, price, and social norms influence donation behaviour

We describe a natural field experiment investigating donation behaviour. The setting was an art gallery where donations could be deposited into a transparent box in the foyer. Two aspects of the donation environment were manipulated: signs on the donation box and the initial contents of the box. We used three sign treatments: a control with no sign, a sign that thanked donors, and a sign that indicated donations would be matched. We used two initial contents treatments: one with relatively little money ($50) and one with four times as much. The average donation per donor was significantly larger in the $200 treatments but this was offset by a decrease in the propensity to donate. In the matching treatments donations were significantly larger both at the per donor and per visitor level. A control variable turned out to have the largest influence on donation behaviour: the day of the week. The average donation per visitor was 51% higher on Sundays, when compared to every other day of the week.     

From the Heart of the Middle East, the Energy of the Future: North Adriatic LNG Terminal

Petroleum is still our most important energy source and it will certainly remain that way for a long time to come. Moreover, an end of oil use is not foreseeable at the present. However, reserves are declining. Liquefied natural gas (LNG), on the other hand, is available in abundant quantities. Nevertheless, the use of LNG is useful to solve a significant problem: the LNG power stations produce much lower CO₂ emissions than petroleum. In fact, an 80% carbon dioxide reduction should be possible, as several companies are currently working on cleaner power stations, such as the LNG ones. Alternative energies are often not used enough as sources of energy. It is therefore all the more important that energy companies put a great deal of effort into supporting sustainable energy and developing cleaner technology, in order to make people less dependent on power from petroleum.      

澳门近十年人口自然增长概况

澳门是一个面积不到 2 4平方公里的地方 ,其人口在过去十年增加了近三成。人口的增加主要来源于移民 ,特别是来自中国内地的移民 ,他们同时亦对澳门人口的自然增长带来很大的影响 ,原因是来自中国内地的移民有较高的生育率。本文简单地介绍了这一现象 ,以及澳门人口自然增长的其他情况。