A lost family-planning regime in eighteenth-century Ceylon

Based on Dutch colonial registers (thombos), this paper reconstructs fertility for two districts in Ceylon, 1756–68. It overcomes challenges in data quality by establishing the outer bounds of plausible estimates in a series of scenarios. Among these, total fertility rates (TFRs) averaged 5.5 in one district, but only 2.7 in the other. These figures exclude the victims of infanticide, a custom noted in European travelogues between about 1660 and 1820. Sex ratios among children differed depending on the number of older siblings, and overall, 27?per cent of girls are missing in one district and 57?per cent in the other. There was little significant variation either in the TFR or the sex ratio by socio-economic status, suggesting that poverty was not a key factor in motivating infanticides. Instead, we argue that at least parts of Ceylon had a forward-looking culture of family planning in the eighteenth century, which was lost in subsequent decades.     

Commodified language in Chinatown: A contextualized approach to linguistic landscape1

In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non‐Chinese owned chains, use Chinese‐language signs as design features targeted towards people who neither read nor have ethnic ties to Chinese. Using this neighborhood as a case study, we advocate a contextualized, historicized and spatialized perspective on linguistic landscape which highlights that landscapes are not simply physical spaces but are instead ideologically charged constructions. Drawing from cultural geography and urban studies, we analyze how written language interacts with other features of the built environment to construct commodified urban places. Taking a contextually informed, qualitative approach, we link micro‐level analysis of individual Chinese‐language signs to the specific local socio‐geographic processes of spatial commodification. Such a qualitative approach to linguistic landscape, which emphasizes the importance of sociohistorical context, and which includes analysis of signage use, function, and history, leads to a greater understanding of the larger sociopolitical meanings of linguistic landscapes.     

城市景观河流生态修复的产出研究及有效性可靠性检验——基于上海城市内河水质改善价值评估的实证分析

意愿价值评估法(CVM)为具有显著外部性的生态环境服务的价值评估提供可能,但只有经过有效性和可靠性检验的CVM成果才能应用于环境公共政策与治理。本文以CVM评价上海市城市景观内河——漕河泾港的生态恢复的产出,在国内经常采用的线形对数模型基础上,加入二值响应的Logit概率模型对受访者社会经济变量进行回归分析,验证本次CVM应用的理论有效性。回归中首次引入反映我国特殊社会结构的户籍变量、收入差距变量两者的交互项,并纳入间接反映环境问题历史成因的居民沿河居住期变量,以验证调查结果与一般经济理论的相容性和与我国特殊社会构成、经济态势以及环境历史成因的吻合性。以预调查和正式调查为试验—复试样本验证了研究结果的可靠性。结果表明:平均支付意愿是160元/(a.户),改善漕河泾水环境的年经济效益至少在6.1×106元。     

Efficient Estimation of Parameters of the Negative Binomial Distribution

In this article we investigate a class of moment-based estimators, called power method estimators, which can be almost as efficient as maximum likelihood estimators and achieve a lower asymptotic variance than the standard zero term method and method of moments estimators. We investigate different methods of implementing the power method in practice and examine the robustness and efficiency of the power method estimators.     

社会工作研究的人文精神——对以实证主义为导向的美国社会工作研究的批判

长期以来,国际社会工作研究常常倾向于以实证主义和经验主义为基础的研究导向,特别是在美国,基于证据的研究方法在社会工作领域十分流行。随着全球化的推进和人们生活方式的现代化,社会工作研究所面临的问题更为复杂,其解决方法单纯依靠各种技术处理的手段来展开是远远不够的,我们在讨论这些问题时,要强化其价值导向。这要求我们在讨论社会工作研究的问题上,把我们的关注点从证据、技术手段和职业标准扩展到价值观、人文精神和对全球化问题的关注等方面,以此来推进国际社会工作的发展。     

Bivariate short distributions

The method of MML estimation for a univariate normal (Tiku 1967, 1973) is extended to a bivariate normal population. Thus, a theoretical foundation is given to the robust correlation coefficient proposed by Tiku and Balakrishnan (1986).     

分支蚁群动态扰动算法求解TSP问题

蚁群优化算法是一种求解组合优化难题的强启发式算法,它利用正反馈和并行计算原理,具备很强的搜索能力。近年来,蚁群优化算法广泛应用于TSP问题的研究。本文提出分支蚁群动态扰动(DPBAC)算法,该算法主要从5个方面对基本蚁群算法做出改进:引入分支策略选取出发城市;改进状态转移规则;引入变异策略改进蚂蚁路径;改进信息素更新规则;引入条件动态扰动策略。实验表明,该算法可以有效改善基本蚁群算法搜索时间较长、容易陷入局部极小等缺点。     

土木工程专业《混凝土结构》课程教学方法和内容探讨

文章从土木工程专业的《混凝土结构》课程着手,探讨了适应新变革需求的教学内容和方法,提出了自己的认识,以期得到广泛的重视和认同,从而保证相关教学工作能顺利进行。     

企业营销道德水准测试的指标体系及评价方法研究

本文是“企业营销道德水准测试及评价系统”课题的前期研究成果。作者首先通过探测性调研确定了影响营销道德水准评价的企业营销行为,并在定量调研基础上将其归并为七个评价营销道德水准的维度,同样还根据定量调研的结果确定了企业营销道德水准的测评方法,为营销道德水准测试与评价系统的建立构筑了重要基础。     

“以学生为中心的主题教学模式”实验研究

通过“以学生为中心的主题教学模式”教改实验测试成绩数据和一系列调查结果的比较分析 ,说明了教学改革对于大学英语课堂教学的效果和学生学习能力的培养有着十分重要的作用