Professional Women, Good Families: Respectable Femininity and the Cultural Politics of a “New” India

This study of professional software women in urban India examines practices of respectable femininity and discourses of the Indian family to understand the changing and abiding aspects of a seemingly new national culture. Colonial and nationalist constructs of the Indian home, and the middle-class women who protected that home, continue to powerfully shape everyday articulations of national belonging, even as they are transformed through individual negotiations and a global economy. Drawing from extensive interviews and ethnographic work, this paper analyzes the interplay of gender, class, and nation in contemporary urban India as individualized, gendered efforts to accumulate symbolic capital.

The roles of human capital and social capital in the economic integration of new arrivals from Mainland China to Hong Kong

Although it has been hypothesized in the literature that both human capital and social capital are important for the economic performance of new immigrants, few studies have examined these relationships empirically, especially in understudied populations such as Chinese populations. This study simultaneously examines the roles of human capital and social capital in the economic integration of new arrivals from Mainland China to Hong Kong, using a random sample of immigrants. In the early stage of immigration (less than 6 months after arrival), we find little support for the presumed positive effects of both human capital and social capital on employment status among new arrivals in Hong Kong. Follow-up studies are underway to investigate the dynamic relationship between social capital and economic integration in this group of new arrivals, and whether social capital, especially friendship networks, plays a more important role in the economic integration of new immigrants 1 or 2 years after arrival.     

Substance use among older youth transitioning from foster care: Examining the protective effects of religious and spiritual capital

Among older youth transitioning from the foster care system, this longitudinal study examined the association of religious and spiritual capital to substance use in the past year at age 19. Participants consisted of African American (N = 179) and White non‐Hispanic (N = 133) older youth in foster care. Drawing from social capital theory, it was posited that religious service attendance (a proxy for religious capital) and belief in a spiritual force (a proxy for spiritual capital) would be inversely associated with substance use. Multiple logistic regression results indicated support for the first and second hypothesis for White foster youth only. Among White foster youth, more frequent religious service attendance and greater belief in a spiritual force were associated with a lower likelihood of illegal substance and polysubstance use. No association between religious or spiritual capital and substance use was found among African American foster youth. The findings underscore the importance of conducting spiritual assessments to help ensure older foster youth who have strong religious or spiritual orientations are in environments where they are accommodated and supported.     

An intuitive risk factors search algorithm: usage of the Bayesian network technique in personalized medicine

The article focuses on the application of the Bayesian networks (BN) technique to problems of personalized medicine. The simple (intuitive) algorithm of BN optimization with respect to the number of nodes using naive network topology is developed. This algorithm allows to increase the BN prediction quality and to identify the most important variables of the network. The parallel program implementing the algorithm has demonstrated good scalability with an increase in the computational cores number, and it can be applied to the large patients database containing thousands of variables. This program is applied for the prediction for the unfavorable outcome of coronary artery disease (CAD) for patients who survived the acute coronary syndrome (ACS). As a result, the quality of the predictions of the investigated networks was significantly improved and the most important risk factors were detected. The significance of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha gene polymorphism for the prediction of the unfavorable outcome of CAD for patients survived after ACS was revealed for the first time.     

Building inclusion,maintaining marginality: how social and health services act as capital for young substance users

This paper draws on Bourdieusian concepts to examine the social mechanisms driving service ‘choices’ for marginalised young substance users. In doing so, it problematises the individualised understandings of ‘choice-making’ common in the existing literature. The paper uses interview data collected from 26 young substance users to describe the resources they bring to their service encounters, the capitals that they acquire through these interactions, and the ways in which these are mobilised within the fields in which they operate. The analysis finds that services acted as capital-building settings – participants acquired material resources and opportunities for skill-building, and they built relationships that contributed to a positive sense of identity and belonging. But the exchange potentials attached to these capitals were restricted by the logics of service fields that cast them as deficit and limited their opportunities to build productive forms of social capital. By revealing the social mechanisms behind service ‘choices’, the analysis suggests that the most effective services are those that maximise the opportunities for their young clients to build ‘weak ties’, such as with a diverse range of adults who themselves possess resources, and those that acknowledge the identities that young people already possess as rational and self-managing.     

Conquering with capital: social,cultural, and economic capital’s role in combating socioeconomic disadvantage and contributing to educational attainment

While socioeconomic barriers to learning have been well-documented by education, sociology, and social policy scholars, further research is needed to understand how students with low-socioeconomic status excel in high-performing schools. The collection and analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with female college students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds provide rich insights into the stark differences between the educational practices of low and high-SES students. Building on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of how habitus and capital influence practices in the field of education exposes unique, strategic practices that low-SES students use to attain educational success within a system of reproduction and power. While entering a high-performing school is often perceived as a definitive step for accessing high-quality educational resources, my findings illustrate how it is actually an important intermediary step within a more complex process. Increasing educational opportunity and attainment for low-SES students requires improving their access to social, cultural, and economic capital through knowledgeable mentors who contribute to a habitus and portfolio of capital which enable practices to successfully navigate and challenge the educational system.     

Do rich teens get richer? Facebook use and the link between offline and online social capital among Palestinian youth in Israel

Studies have shown that using social networking sites contributes to social capital. This study investigated the association between specific features of Facebook and online social capital. Two contrasting hypothesis were tested. The first posits that the rich get richer, meaning that the creation of social capital online reflects the stock of offline resources already available. In contrast, the compensation hypothesis argues that disadvantaged ethnic minorities are more likely to use social media to compensate for their lack of social capital offline. We tested these two theories among a representative sample of Palestinian teenagers (N?=?567). While we found no gender differences in the use of Facebook’s features, our results highlight the positive correlation between the use of active and passive communication features and perceived social capital online. Moreover, the results support the rich-get-richer model; in that, even among this socially disadvantaged group, the youngsters who already had a store of social capital offline benefitted more from using Facebook.     

Particle swarm optimization based Liu-type estimator

In this study, a new method for the estimation of the shrinkage and biasing parameters of Liu-type estimator is proposed. Because k is kept constant and d is optimized in Liu’s method, a (k, d) pair is not guaranteed to be the optimal point in terms of the mean square error of the parameters. The optimum (k, d) pair that minimizes the mean square error, which is a function of the parameters k and d, should be estimated through a simultaneous optimization process rather than through a two-stage process. In this study, by utilizing a different objective function, the parameters k and d are optimized simultaneously with the particle swarm optimization technique.     

基于贝叶斯SDM模型的中国城镇居民收入收敛性分析

随着中国经济的高速增长,中国区域间贫富差距也日渐加大,在此背景下对中国城镇居民收入是否收敛进行检验并探究其影响原因十分必要。基于一个包括物质资本和人力资本投入的新古典增长模型,根据中国31个省市的1987—2013年数据,利用SDM模型和贝叶斯MCMC统计分析方法,研究城镇居民收入的收敛性问题,结果发现:中国城镇居民人均收入具有显著的空间差异,且在1987—2008年为发散、在2008—2013年以及1987—2013年为存在β收敛的变化趋势;物质资本对中国城镇居民收入增长的β收敛具有正向促进作用,而人力资本对其具有反向促进作用,增加物质资本投入有利于缩小地区收入差距,二者的不匹配可能是导致中国收入增长差距的原因。     

“农转非”、人力资本回报与收入不平等——基于分位数回归分解的方法

随着中国城镇化进程的推进,越来越多的农村户籍人口实现了身份转换,成为制度认可的新市民。本文利用中国综合社会调查（CGSS）数据发现,即使户口状况相同,"新市民"与"老市民"之间依然存在一定的收入差距。分位数回归及其分解的结果显示,"农转非"人群在劳动力市场上仍受到制度性或非制度性歧视,且歧视程度随着分位数的变化呈现倒U型趋势。同时,"农转非"人群内部也存在较大的差异,歧视降低了自致型"农转非"人群相较于城市原居民的禀赋优势,而外致型"农转非"人群则面临人力资本劣势与就业市场歧视的双重压力。