‘Occupation Children’ in Germany after World War II — Problems and Coping Strategies

The article focuses on the autobiographical memories of people born in Germany after the Second World War, whose mothers were local women and whose fathers were members of the allied forces. Based on the analysis of narrative interviews, we ask how these people experienced their growing up and their sociocultural environment in the post‐war era, and what kind of coping strategies they developed to deal with adverse living conditions.     

Indifference and repetition: occupation testimonies and left-wing despair

As despair is increasingly seeping into leftist politics in many parts of the world, its long-held image as a hindrance to political activism still prevents the thriving literature on the politics of feeling from adequately theorizing this collective posture. This article seeks to probe the public manifestations of left-wing despair by looking at the despairing dispositions that have evolved in the Israeli Left in response to its failure to undermine Israel’s regime of occupation, using the coping modes this failure has sparked as a conduit for complicating the negative image of despair in politics. The analysis draws on two documentaries that showcase soldiers’ testimonies – Z32 and Censored Voices – in which the compulsive but fruitless repetition of witnessing is brought to the fore and serves as a platform for the enactment of despair as a distinctively public disposition. In dialogue with Wendy Brown’s notion of left melancholy and Lauren Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism, the article propounds despair – understood not as an affect, a feeling, or an emotion, but as a recursively performed posture – as an alternative analytic grid for grasping the contemporary agonies of the Left. Drawing on the Israeli documentaries, it demonstrates that despair may be propelled and perpetuated by two kinds of crises – a crisis of movement and a crisis of belonging. Taking both modalities as evidence that despair does not necessarily involve a withdrawal into the self and may transpire through public acts of care, the article claims, using Bonnie Honig’s work on public things, that the ground for the assessment of despair should be shifted from its presumed impact on political actors to the tangible imprints it leaves in the public settings in which action takes place.     

Cross-validation of the screening scale in an adult protective services sample

Adult Protective Services (APS) professionals are often called on to assess decision-making capacity when investigating financial exploitation. Previous research found that in consecutive APS cases, a decision-making screening scale (LFDSS) also detected financial exploitation. The purpose of this study was to apply the clinical cutoff scores derived from the previous study to a new sample of APS cases. Using a sample of 105 participants, from APS workers across 5 counties this study investigated the clinical utility of the LFDSS to detect financial exploitation based on ratings by APS professionals using the scale. Results demonstrate that the LFDSS has excellent internal consistency and clinical utility properties. This paper provides support for use of the LFDSS as a reliable and valid instrument. Instructions for use of the LFDSS are included in the article, along with information about online support tools.     

Identifying Systemically Important Banks: A temporal approach for macroprudential policies

Contrary to the general belief, systemic risk does not only regard the risk posed by balance sheet relationships and interdependencies among institutions. It also features a temporal dimension related to the inappropriate responses of financial market participants to changes in risk over time. This paper proposes a method to simultaneously address the cross-sectional and the time dimension in which systemic risk materializes. The method is based on the TOPHITS algorithm. It provides three scores, namely borrowing, lending and time scores: the first two represent the systemic importance of the borrowing and the lending activity associated with each financial institution,while the third represents an empirical Early Warning Signal of the financial crisis. Our findings reveal that the identification of the time score as an indicator for an incoming market distress could be relevant to design macro prudential policies.     

FEPA-金融时间序列自适应组合预测模型

本文报告一种金融时间序列预测的信号分析、信息融合与智能计算组合模型,简称FEPA,由针对金融时间序列（FTS）信号分析的经验模态分解（EMD）、用于数据降维的主成分分析（PCA）和用于非线性建模的人工神经网络（ANN）三部分组成。该模型首先应用滑动窗口截取原始金融时间序列最近期数据集,应用EMD分解算法把数据集分解成不同尺度的本征模态函数（IMF）,然后通过主成分分析将分解后的数据降维,提取最有信息量的特征;然后将这些特征输入到神经网络进行组合预测。本文提出的组合预测模型FEPA是基于分解-提优-合成的信息融合思想,有效提高了预测可靠性。其创新点在于：1）首次给出了EMD算法的结构化表达,提供了今后融合更多信息的算法接口;2）通过多步长预测输出深入研究EMD分解的有效信息结构;3）通过切换到更细时间框架来处理EMD的端点效应,并探索了两级时间框架下的预测效果;4）给出了金融时间序列组合预测模型的一般性架构,具有可升级性和可扩展性。并且通过滑动窗口EMD使得实证更能切近实际。通过在沪深300股指和澳大利亚股指上的实证,结果表明FEPA预测模型在沪深300股指日线和15分钟线上的预测命中率高达78%和82%,在澳大利亚股指日线上也达到了74%的命中率,经比较,明显高于文献中常见的5种模型。     

金融集聚、生产率增长与城乡收入差距的实证分析——基于动态空间面板模型

本文利用中国2003-2013年285个地级及以上城市的统计数据,采用动态空间面板模型实证分析了金融集聚对城市总体生产率增长及其内部城乡收入差距的影响,研究结论表明：金融集聚是促进城市总体生产率增长的重要推动力,同时也是导致城市内部城乡收入差距扩大的关键因素,这主要是因为金融集聚显著推动了城市居民人均收入水平的提高,而对农村居民人均收入水平的提升作用不显著。本文的政策含义在于,在城市金融集聚的扩散阶段还没有到来之前,政府旨在缓解城乡收入差距的金融政策可能会抑制城市总体生产率增长。     

What Helped Nonprofits Weather the Great Recession?

This study examined the effectiveness of several financial strategies for nonprofit organizations in fighting the Great Recession. Using data from human services and community improvement organizations in the state of New Jersey, we tested hypotheses about the relationships between three measures of financial sustainability and various fundraising efforts and financial indicators. We found that (1) except for strong external funding relationships, funding efforts were generally not effective in enhancing financial sustainability during the crisis; (2) higher operating margin and equity ratio improved an organization's ability to generate revenue and maintain expense levels, but higher debt ratio and administrative cost ratio were generally harmful; and (3) revenue diversification might aggravate fiscal stress and cause more expense cuts in a severe crisis. These findings improve our understanding of the mechanics of nonprofit management during times of harsh fiscal conditions and suggest useful ways for nonprofit organizations to navigate future financial crises.     

Financial Knowledge and Behaviors of Chinese Migrant Workers: An International Perspective on a Financially Vulnerable Population

ABSTRACT

Making informed financial decisions is crucial to the wellbeing of Chinese migrant workers. Using interview survey data (N = 329), this study examined financial knowledge and behaviors of migrant workers in China. Results showed that participants demonstrated low levels of financial knowledge (51.4%) and beneficial financial behaviors (51.0%). Multivariate results indicated that a modest proportion of the variance in financial behaviors was explained by financial knowledge, attitudes, and socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., marital status and income). Findings underscore the importance of disseminating culturally-relevant educational interventions to financially at-risk, low-paid migrant workers in China.     

Good personal finances or a strong social capital—on different life conditions of importance for an active life when becoming alone in old age

Becoming alone in old age can be a decisive life event that brings major changes depending on various causes as health status, financial resources, family situation, and available welfare services. This article discusses the situation of older people in Sweden who have transitioned from a two-person to single-person household in recent years and what impact this might have on their everyday lives. Through in-depth interviews with 18 older people, age 67–90, their experiences about life conditions and opportunities were examined. Findings showed large differences between the men and women. They all tried to live as they always had done and they used the same personal life strategies that they always had. But the men could live as before on their own financial merits, while the women needed assistance from children, grandchildren and the welfare system. Transportation options were central and clearly related to both private economy and social services available. Shortcomings in the welfare state's way of caring for the elderly were clearly uncovered. The gap between social policy promises of opportunities for autonomy and independence to live an active life in old age and the everyday reality for older people still seems to be wide.     

大学生择业价值取向及职业生涯规划调查分析

通过对合肥学院机械工程系98位应届毕业生的问卷调查,分析当代大学生择业价值取向和职业生涯规划的现实状况,提出要理性看待大学毕业生追求和加强对大学生进行职业规划教育的两点建议。