Social Support and its Correlation with Loneliness and Subjective Well-being: A Cross-cultural Study of Older Nepalese Adults

Population aging in Nepal is a recent phenomenon, due more to demographic changes than to socio-economic development. The study had three goals: to analyze the social support exchange among elderly men and women; to discover the main sources of support in loneliness and subjective well-being in the elderly; and to study the cross-cultural differences in support among elderly Chhetri ( N  = 137, mean age = 69.1 [7.2] years) and Newar people ( N  = 195, mean age = 68.8 [7.7] years) in one ward in Kathmandu. The data were collected using face-to-face interviews. The dependent variables were loneliness and subjective well-being (SWB). The results for both ethnic Chhetri and Newar respondents show that their major support comes from their children living in the same household and their spouses. I conclude that the sources of social support and social support exchange are similar between the two castes/ethnicities and that there are no cross-cultural differences between them in terms of support for loneliness and SWB-life stability, although there are cross-cultural differences in their SWB-life satisfaction. Providing social support to friends and neighbors appears to be related to less loneliness and increased SWB in both castes/ethnicities.     

试析涂尔干的社会学研究方法——以《宗教生活的基本形式》为例

社会学作为一门独立的学科 ,其研究对象和研究方法在其创始人孔德那里并不明确。只有到涂尔干的《社会学研究方法论》问世以后 ,这个问题才得以解决。但应该如何选择研究对象、界定研究概念、运用具体的研究方法 ,涂尔干在《宗教生活的基本形式》一书中给出了很好的答案。他的这些研究方法奠定了西方社会学方法论的基础。今天社会学的研究方法已经有了长足的发展 ,个案法、观察法、实验法、历史法、比较法、定性法、定量法等等早已运用于社会学研究的各个领域 ,但这些方法无一不是以包括涂尔干等人的方法论为基础发展起来的     

Challenges to the Acceptance of Probabilistic Risk Analysis

This paper discusses a number of the key challenges to the acceptance and application of probabilistic risk analysis (PRA). Those challenges include: (a) the extensive reliance on subjective judgment in PRA, requiring the development of guidance for the use of PRA in risk-informed regulation, and possibly the development of robust or reference prior distributions to minimize the reliance on judgment; and (b) the treatment of human performance in PRA, including not only human error per se but also management and organizational factors more broadly. All of these areas are seen as presenting interesting research challenges at the interface between engineering and other disciplines.     

Effect of family structure on life satisfaction: australian evidence

How do family arrangements affect subjective well-being? We investigate this issue using data pooled from the IsssA and HILDA, both large, representative national samples of Australia (pooled n=38 447). Our regression analysis of cross-sectional and panel data examines how large are the differences in life satisfaction according to marital status and cohabitation. We find that women and men in formal marriages experience higher levels of life satisfaction than do people in other family arrangements. Moreover, both multiple tests in the cross-section, and tests controlling for prior happiness in the panel analysis, suggest that this is a causal relationship. Aggregating up the levels of life satisfaction generated by different marriage and cohabitation arrangements across a lifetime, suggests that a life-long marriage is the most satisfying. Early divorce followed by an enduring second marriage is little worse (because little time is spent outside the married state). But divorce without remarriage, or long lasting cohabitation without formal marriage, reduce the lifetime sum of subjective well-being by 4–12% for both women and men.     

Subjective Distributions

A decision maker has to choose one of several random variables whose distributions are not known. As a Bayesian, she behaves as if she knew the distributions. In this paper we suggest an axiomatic derivation of these (subjective) distributions, which is more economical than the derivations by de Finetti or Savage. Whereas the latter derive the whole joint distribution of all the available random variables, our approach derives only the marginal distributions. Correspondingly, the preference questionnaire needed in our case is less smaller.     

对正当防卫主观条件的反思--从一则案例谈起

保护"非法利益"的防卫行为能否构成正当防卫,这一问题不仅在犯罪客体复杂性的视角上有厘清之必要,而且即使就单纯的保护"非法利益"的防卫行为而言,也可以构成正当防卫.通过对正当防卫的法条、相关理论、实质、立法价值取向以及正当性标准的剖析,对正当防卫主观条件的传统理论进行了反思,提出了挑战.     

周珏良“译述”法及其译作《〈李尔王〉分析》

著名翻译家周珏良教授提出用“译述”法翻译文艺批评的理论性文章 ,本文试通过“译述”法在《〈李尔王〉分析》中的成功运用分析译述者的主体性特征——目的性、受动性以及能动性在翻译实践中的具体体现     

苗文化传承与沈从文小说叙事的主体话语权利

在苗族作家沈从文的小说叙事中 ,作者对话语权利的争取是其最明确的特征。其叙事视角的选择与转换调整 ,都是为了确定自己在小说叙事中存在的地位 ,确定自己在叙事中的话语权利。这一切与苗族文化口传心授的传承机制有着相同的文化心理动因和外在表现形态。沈从文对苗文化的认同 ,对苗族人文价值观念的认同 ,导致了他小说创作中相同于苗文化传承的叙事的产生     

论胡风对主观公式主义和客观主义文艺倾向的批判

庸俗社会学和机械反映论对我国新文学尤其是左翼革命文学产生了相当恶劣的影响。胡风将之称为“主观公式主义”和“客观主义”,并同他们进行了长期的不屈不挠的斗争,在斗争中建立了自己的以“主观战斗精神”为核心的现实主义理论体系,为现代文学的健康发展做出了积极的贡献。     

试论普鲁斯特的文学创作

法国意识流小说大师普鲁斯特以反传统的写作风格和反叛的艺术思想在文学界和文学评论界引起了强烈的震撼.他的超长篇小说<追忆似水年华>一直被视为法国20世纪上半叶甚至是整个20世纪最伟大的文学杰作.其随笔体风格和"以乱取胜"的叙述手法打破了常规,是对根深蒂固的规范准则的颠覆和对传统秩序的解构.在为我们带来全新写作风格的同时,普鲁斯特笔下也为我们带来了一个全新的世界.