‘We Can All Just Get on a Bus and Go’: Rethinking Independent Mobility in the Context of the Universal Provision of Free Bus Travel to Young Londoners

This paper uses qualitative data from interviews with 118 young Londoners (age 12–18) to examine how the universal provision of free bus travel has affected young people’s independent mobility. Drawing on Sen’s capabilities approach, we argue that free bus travel enhanced young Londoners’ capabilities to shape their daily mobility, both directly by increasing financial access and indirectly by facilitating the acquisition of the necessary skills, travelling companions and confidence. These capabilities in turn extended both opportunity freedoms (e.g. facilitating non-‘necessary’ recreational and social trips) and process freedoms (e.g. feeling more independent by decreasing reliance on parents). Moreover, the universal nature of the entitlement rendered buses a socially inclusive way for groups to travel and spend time together, thereby enhancing group-level capabilities. We believe this attention to individual and group capabilities for self-determination provides the basis for a broader and more child-centred view of independent mobility than the typical research focus upon travelling without an adult and acquiring parental permissions.     

Investing in the Citizen-workers of the Future: Transformations in Citizenship and the State under New Labour

There is growing interest in the idea of the “social investment state”. This paper analyses the emergence of such a state in the UK, in the context of a brief account of the more general transformations of citizenship and the state under New Labour. It argues that, despite the iconic status of the child in the social investment state, it is the child as “citizen‐worker” of the future rather than “citizen‐child” of the present who is invoked by the future‐oriented discourse of social investment.     

孤竹国释论--一支华夏化的东北夷

商周时期的孤竹国人原是东北夷中的一支 ,世居在今河北省东北部和辽宁省西南部。不仅与商王室同姓 ,而且是商政权北部拥有相当力量的诸侯国。从其名号文化的内涵、语言文字及某些习俗 ,还有伯夷、叔齐的事迹等方面判定 ,这支东北夷在商代大体完成华夏化进程 ,成为东北地区世居类型的汉族之先世。孤竹国人与其他共同体并肩开发东北南部广大地区 ,为燕国以及秦汉积极经略这一地区提供了条件。     

Adding Sexual Orientation to New York State's Human Rights Law: Initial Information About Implementation and Effectiveness

While previous research has focused on measuring employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and establishing the need for laws that protect against such discrimination, very little research has evaluated the effectiveness of current nondiscrimination laws. This exploratory research considers the addition of sexual orientation to New York State's Human Rights Law as it relates to employment. In an effort to better understand the implementation and overall effectiveness of the law, attorneys in New York who specialize in employment law were surveyed. The survey results, based on the responses of 34 attorneys, provide insights into how well the law has initially protected individuals from discrimination, and how well it has provided redress for claimants of employment discrimination. The initial results of the research suggest that employees mostly seek redress for a hostile work environment, that potential claimants are concerned with confidentiality and retaliation, and that more training for employees is needed to combat employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.     

Approximation of the Bivariate Renewal Function

Recently, Kambo and his co-researchers (2012) proposed a method of approximation for evaluating the one-dimensional renewal function based on the first three moments. Their method is simple and elegant, which gives exact values for well-known distributions. In this article, we propose an analogous method for the evaluation of bivariate renewal function based on the first two moments of the variables and their joint moment. The proposed method yields exact results for certain widely used bivariate distributions like bivariate exponential distribution, bivariate Weibull distributions, and bivariate Pareto distributions. An illustrative example in the form of a two-dimensional warranty problem is considered and comparisons of our method are made with the results of other models.     

Devolution in a ‘Stateless Nation’: Nation‐building and Social Policy in Scotland

The implications of the 2011 Scottish election and the proposed referendum on Scottish independence for the future of social policy across the devolved UK are profound but far from certain. It is crucial to understand not only the historical nature of this conjuncture but to develop an adequate conceptual understanding of the place of social policy in the dialectic between state and nation in Scotland. To this end, we critically examine theories that depict Scotland as an essentially ‘stateless nation’ in the light of recent developments. In so doing, we examine the implications for social policy of the changing character of statehood in Scotland, the nature of civil nationalism, and the problem of legitimacy in Scotland for the UK as a multinational state. As the architecture of statehood is re‐negotiated, strong centrifugal pressures are being created for a more distinct divergence of social policy in Scotland from the rest of the UK regardless of the outcome of the independence referendum. Policy‐making is ensnared in a series of tensions, not just between Westminster and Holyrood but also, more broadly, tensions between competing principles of social justice and territorial justice, and competing demands between welfare nationalism and competitive nationalism.     

战国四公子风范及其性格探微

战国时期,群雄割据,连年混战,政局动荡。为了达到强大自己并统一天下的目的,各诸侯国对人才的需要极度膨胀,而这一时期,以好客喜士而闻名的四公子,即齐国孟尝君、赵国平原君、魏国信陵君、楚国春申君,为其所处诸侯国的人才储备与供应做了巨大贡献。司马迁在《史记》中对四公子的行径描述详细。在这里,分别从“四公子何以进入《史记》”“四公子之好客”“四公子之疏误…‘从生活环境窥探四公子的性格”和“太史公笔下的四公子”等方面浅显解析战国四公子之异同。     

Double‐mouthed discourse: Interpreting,framing, and participant roles1

In this article I examine multilingual displays in a Congolese Pentecostal church in Cape Town, South Africa. I focus on the simultaneous interpreting of the pastor's French sermon into English. I argue that the interpreting activity performed at church is used as a powerful interactional device to dramatize and shape the pastor's sermon. A close examination of participant roles shows that although these may appear to be predetermined by the interpretee‐interpreter format of the sermon, speaking roles are actually fluid and negotiated. I submit that an important role of the church interpreter is to convey the pastor's inspiration from the Holy Spirit and reach out to the potential audience absent from the here and now of the service. His high emotional engagement helps convey this inspiration prospectively to the audience and retroactively to the pastor himself.     

互联网免费服务价值核算研究

近年来,越来越多的企业选择以低廉或免费的价格为居民提供互联网服务,但产出价值和消费行为却无法在GDP核算中体现。服务业产出被低估一直为学术界所讨论,在此背景下,互联网经济下创新的免费商业模式对传统核算理论的挑战成为本文研究切入点。本文在“互联网免费服务与顾客价值”的易货交易框架下对其价值核算展开研究,将互联网免费服务价值核算与数据资产核算联系在一起,使数据成为连接互联网免费服务与国民经济核算中生产、消费、收入核算的桥梁。文章最后通过模拟核算案例表现了互联网免费服务核算对不同账户的影响,建议对住户部门的生产、消费与收入各增加一笔虚拟处理,对企业的生产、收入及资产也各增加一笔虚拟处理,且这6笔虚拟价值相等。     

Promoting sustainable development through civil society: A case study of the EU’s NSA/LA thematic programme in Kyrgyzstan

The article focuses on the contribution of the European Union (EU) in promoting sustainable development through the involvement of civil society in partner countries. More specifically, it analyses the main features and outcomes of the projects implemented by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Kyrgyzstan under the EU thematic programme Non‐State Actors and Local Authorities in Development (NSA/LA). Despite its importance—this is the only EU programme providing direct support to non‐state actors and local authorities engaged in poverty reduction—to date, there has been very little research on the functioning of this instrument on the ground. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the EU’s contribution to sustainable development through a case study on Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on primary data: 10 semi‐structured interviews conducted with the EU‐funded organizations implementing the NSA/LA programme. The NSA/LA projects were analysed by considering two major fields of engagement of non‐state actors in the development process: as service providers and as advocates (Banks & Hulme, 2012). Overall, the organizations awarded EU support were not only focused on fulfilling short‐term needs but also sought to introduce new ways of dealing with poverty and inequality, positioning themselves between the “Big‐D” and the “little‐d” approaches to development (Bebbington, Hickey, & Mitlin, 2008). Nonetheless, the EU‐funded projects were too limited and fragmented to be able to sustain long‐term structural change. Therefore, the EU should place new emphasis on creating synergies between new and old structures at the grassroots level and establishing mechanisms and bodies that could merge and co‐ordinate their efforts. In addition, the calls for proposals could highlight the need to share the lessons learnt by “obliging” the beneficiaries to act as multipliers and to pass on their positive experience to neighbouring communities. Finally, the EU could stimulate the funded organizations to experiment with innovative mechanisms of involvement in the policy‐making process, by making this aspect a mandatory requirement of the projects implemented with its support.