Economic Strain and Children's Behavior in the Aftermath of the Great Recession

Families across the income spectrum experienced subjective feelings of economic strain during the Great Recession. Existing evidence suggests that much of that economic strain did not arise from individual‐specific economic shocks, such as unemployment or income loss, as much as it did from worry and uncertainty about the future. The authors tested a model in which a measure of subjective perceptions of economic strain was the key predictor of children's behavior problems and objective indicators of economic experiences were treated as control variables. To do so, they used new data from a population‐based sample of children ages 4–17 (N = 303) living in southeast Michigan during the period 2009–2012. They found that economic strain exhibited a qualitatively large independent association with internalizing behavior problems for White—but not Black—children. This association was statistically significant over and above objective indicators of economic experiences and the family psychosocial context.     

On inference for Kendall's τ within a longitudinal data setting

Kendall's τ is a non-parametric measure of correlation based on ranks and is used in a wide range of research disciplines. Although methods are available for making inference about Kendall's τ, none has been extended to modeling multiple Kendall's τs arising in longitudinal data analysis. Compounding this problem is the pervasive issue of missing data in such study designs. In this article, we develop a novel approach to provide inference about Kendall's τ within a longitudinal study setting under both complete and missing data. The proposed approach is illustrated with simulated data and applied to an HIV prevention study.     

中日韩老年人互动方案研究

人口老龄化究竟是挑战还是机遇，关键在于如何充分利用老年人力资源，推动老有所为，实现积极老龄化。参与社会，扩大交流是中日韩三国老年人的共同要求。要充分认识到当前中日韩民间交流中的老年人的作用，切实推进老年人的文化交流与民间往来。中日韩三国积极老龄化的成功经验和有效做法具有相互学习和借鉴的价值，三国在应对人口老龄化领域有着广阔的合作空间和前景。中日韩三国应长期、积极地开展交流与合作。     

An Assessment of Two Parenting Training Manuals Used in Swedish Parenting Interventions

In Sweden, all parents of children aged 0–18 years are entitled to attend free parenting courses as part of a national strategy presented by the Government in 2009. This broad parental support welfare strategy is expected to fulfil the intentions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In this study, two parenting training manuals were analysed: the Canadian Connect program, based on attachment theory, and the Swedish ABC program, based on social learning theory. The results indicate that the manuals use strategies that can both hinder and support children's rights, regardless of rhetoric of children's best interests.     

Economic design of acceptance sampling plans for truncated life test using Frechet distribution

In this article designing of acceptance sampling plans for the truncated life test is proposed using economic approach by assuming that the lifetime of a product follows Frechet distribution based on median. The optimal sampling plans to meet the consumer’s confidence level with minimum total cost are designed. Efficiency of the proposed plan is also analyzed.     

An integrated approach for water resources decision making under interactive and compound uncertainties

In recent years, the issue of water allocation among competing users has been of great concern for many countries due to increasing water demand from population growth and economic development. In water management systems, the inherent uncertainties and their potential interactions pose a significant challenge for water managers to identify optimal water-allocation schemes in a complex and uncertain environment. This paper thus proposes a methodology that incorporates optimization techniques and statistical experimental designs within a general framework to address the issues of uncertainty and risk as well as their correlations in a systematic manner. A water resources management problem is used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The results indicate that interval solutions can be generated for the objective function and decision variables, and a number of decision alternatives can be obtained under different policy scenarios. The solutions with different risk levels of constraint violation can help quantify the relationship between the economic objective and the system risk, which is meaningful for supporting risk management. The experimental data obtained from the Taguchi's orthogonal array design are useful for identifying the significant factors affecting the means of total net benefits. Then the findings from the mixed-level factorial experiment can help reveal the latent interactions between those significant factors at different levels and their effects on the modeling response.     

浅议中国民族歌剧发展存在的问题

中国民族歌剧自上世纪20年代诞生以来,在学习与借鉴欧洲传统歌剧的基础上,已经有了较大水平的提升,许多优秀歌剧作品不论是歌剧内容还是艺术形式上都堪比西方歌剧。然而,民族歌剧的艺术形式影响着歌剧在我国的普及程度,许多优秀的新歌剧"昙花一现",中国民族歌剧事业的发展面临着巨大挑战,探索一条我国歌剧自己的道路还需要歌剧创作者们付出更多的努力。     

Que faire de la compassion au travail ? La réflexivité stratégique des avocats à l’audience

The article explores the way in which professionals who are exposed to people's testimonies of suffering manage to integrate compassion into their work. Research has shown how compassion is a problematic emotion for such professionals, and has identified the forms of reflexivity that they employ to handle the tensions that such feelings arouse. By examining legal work — in particular the practices of lawyers in a criminal trial where a large number of victims are present — the article makes a new contribution to the study of compassion in the workplace. It identifies the normative repertoire which lawyers use to construct an appropriate attitude towards victims and analyses how, within the framework of strategic reflexivity, lawyers mobilise this repertoire to suit the particular interests they are representing at the trial.     

The matched pair sign test using bivariate ranked set sampling for different ranking based schemes

Bivariate rank set sample (BVRSS) matched pair sign test is introduced and investigated for different ranking based schemes. We show that this test is asymptotically more efficient and more powerful than its counterpart sign test based on a bivariate simple random sample (BVSRS) for different ranking schemes. The asymptotic null distribution and the efficiency of the test are derived. Pitman’s asymptotic relative efficiency is used to compare the asymptotic performance of the matched pair sign test using BVRSS versus using BVSRS in all ranking cases. For small sample sizes, the bootstrap method is used to estimate P-values. Numerical comparisons are used to gain insight about the efficiency of the BVRSS sign test compared to the BVSRS sign test. Our numerical and theoretical results indicate that using any ranking scheme of BVRSS for the matched pair sign test is more efficient than using BVSRS.     

“平等”之道德立法原理新论

平等，是人类文明的内在道德立法原理。从蒙昧时期到野蛮阶段，自然主义平等充任着人类生活的普遍准则；国家诞生后，权力主义等级内平等充当着人类文明的内在道德立法原理；进入近代社会，等级平等原理被人人平等原理所取代，由此建立起人类中心主义的现代文明，这种文明制造了人与自然间的不平等。因此，当代人类应重建普遍平等之道德立法的价值尺度原理，这一普遍平等原理的内在本质是普遍利益权利；其存在论原则是自然平等、万物平等、生命平等；其生存论方向是人人存在人权平等和公民生存权利平等。