Need,well‐being and outcomes: the development of policy‐thinking for children's services 1989–2004

This paper describes how government policy thinking about the well‐being of children and young people developed between the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004. These two Acts are milestone statements about how services to children in England and Wales should be delivered. It is an account informed by the author's own experience as a government adviser on children's social care over much of this period and supporting documentation. It traces the strands of government policy thinking about how to deliver services for children from children in need to the articulation of the five Every Child Matters outcomes. It argues that attempts to achieve coordinated service planning for children and young people played a significant role in the formulation of shared objectives and the articulation of child outcomes. However, it argues that looking at real outcomes exposes how children in the UK do relatively badly compared with other rich nations. It questions whether we can realistically expect our services to deliver significantly improved outcomes given the impact of enduring inequality in our society. This paper is dedicated to the memory of David Lambert CBE, former Assistant Chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate in London, who died suddenly on 7 October 2010. He lent me articles to assist me in writing this paper.     

我国企业品牌定位的五层次研究

近年来中国企业的品牌建设取得了可喜的成绩,出现了许多优秀品牌,这些品牌凭借独特、合适的定位取得了成功。但企业在品牌定位方面存在许多误区,如把品牌定位看作产品定位、品牌定位模糊,缺乏差异性和明确的核心价值、品牌盲目延伸导致定位混淆等问题。因此,产品品牌定位必须树立正确的定位理念,应用正确的品牌定位方法。正确的品牌定位方法可分为产品特征定位、物质利益定位、情感利益定位、个性定位以及价值观定位共五个层次。     

能源安全体系建构的理论与实践

在我国能源安全面临的一系列重大问题中，能源领域的政策规划薄弱，法律保障制度建设与管理体制改革滞后，能源供应与能源安全保障体系缺乏相关政策、法律和制度的保障。只有真正做到政策、法律和管理体制“三位一体”，才能确保国家能源安全。本文从能源安全体系建构的理论和实践出发，借鉴西方能源安全战略实践，从政策、法律和管理体制等角度，对我国能源安全体系的内在机制建构进行分析，旨在为我国与中东能源合作提供借鉴与参考。     

Does Fatherhood Matter for Men?

Ignored in the flurry of new research on fathers is that fatherhood may have consequences for men. This article explores possible effects on the lives and well‐being of men for a range of fatherhood experiences. Data are drawn from the National Survey of Families and Households. The first part of this article examines whether men's varied associations with children (no children, coresident, non‐coresident, and stepfatherhood) are associated with men's psychological health and behavior, social connections, intergenerational family relations, and work behavior. We found strong evidence that fathers differ from nonfathers in their social connections, family relationships, and work behavior. There is significant variation in effects among the father types as well. The second section of this article focuses attention only on men who are fathers and examines whether fathering behavior (e.g., the amount of time and nature of the activities that fathers are reported to be spending with their children) is associated with men's well‐being. The effects of father involvement on men was found to be most significant for those who were living with their own children.     

A comparison of some conditional and unconditional exact tests for 2x2 contingency tables

In 1935, R.A. Fisher published his well-known “exact” test for 2x2 contingency tables. This test is based on the conditional distribution of a cell entry when the rows and columns marginal totals are held fixed. Tocher (1950) and Lehmann (1959) showed that Fisher s test, when supplemented by randomization, is uniformly most powerful among all the unbiased tests UMPU). However, since all the practical tests for 2x2 tables are nonrandomized - and therefore biased the UMPU test is not necessarily more powerful than other tests of the same or lower size. Inthis work, the two-sided Fisher exact test and the UMPU test are compared with six nonrandomized unconditional exact tests with respect to their power. In both the two-binomial and double dichotomy models, the UMPU test is often less powerful than some of the unconditional tests of the same (or even lower) size. Thus, the assertion that the Tocher-Lehmann modification of Fisher's conditional test is the optimal test for 2x2 tables is unjustified.     

Pre‐procreative ages in population stability and cyclicity

Age‐specific models of population renewal (with and without feedback) which imply convergence to a stable state for some levels of fertility or feedback may imply the presence of long‐term cycling around a constant or exponentially changing equilibrium for other levels of fertility or feedback. The switch from one regime to the other is a “bifurcation.”; The conditions for bifurcation involve the roots of an analogue of Lotka's Equation.

Typically bifurcation is induced by raising the strength of feedback or the level of fertility. It has been known since the early 1980s, however, that this is sometimes impossible. It is sometimes impossible even with the linear renewal equation itself and with the most basic of non‐linear models, Lee's cohort feedback model.

Here it is proved that this typical route to bifurcation does not fail for these basic models in the presence of a condition which always holds for realistic applications with higher organisms: the existence of a span of ages before the onset of fertility.

Specifically, a strictly positive lower bound on ages of procreation is proved to be sufficient to guarantee the existence of a rescaling of Lotka's Equation for which the real part of some complex root vanishes. This result holds for absolutely Lebesgue‐integrable (signed) net maternity functions on the positive real line and for absolutely summable (signed) net maternities on the positive integers.

It follows that Coale's rescaling device for the analysis of approach to stability in stable population theory can be implemented for all realistic human net maternity schedules. It also follows that the many special cases of the cohort feedback model throughout population biology will all generate persistent cycling instead of stability if feedback is sufficiently strong.     

科学霸权主义与人的困境

在西方现代化进程中，科学极大地解放了人的智力和体力，为人的自由发展提供了条件。然而，当科学的权威急剧膨胀变异成科学霸权主义，科学成为奴役人的工具时，却造成了人的困境。我国正处于现代化建设的进程中，需要吸收和借鉴西方科学发展进程中的经验和教训，发展一种厚道的、有机的科学具有重要的现实意义。     

Cumulants of random sum distributions

Consider a random variable S being the sum of a number N of independent and identically distributed random variables X_j (j = 1, 2, ...) where the number N is itself a non-negative integer-valued random variable independent of the X_j An explicit expression of the r-th cumulant of S is given in terms of the cumulants of N and X_j, Asymptotic properties of the distribution of S are also discussed.     

性观念:70后和80后的比较——基于CGSS2005数据的分析

当前中国社会有关70后和80后之间的各种争论层出不穷,主要集中在性观念等道德观的层面,例如,许多人认为80后在性观念上面比70后更为开放,但是缺乏严谨的数据论证。因此,本文使用CGSS(中国综合社会调查)2005年的数据对此进行了分析,发现70后、80后这种基于年龄的代际概念并没有统计上的意义,即在控制相关变量后,这两个年龄阶段群体的性观念开放程度并不存在显著的差异。     

Predicting Future Commitment to Care for Frail Parents Among Employed Caregivers

A study of 133 full time employees with parent care responsibilities investigated various factors that could reduce this group's future caregiving commitment to aging parents. Study factors included: caregiver attributes, level of caregiving involvement, job stress, tensions between the caregiver and the dependent parent, caregiver's level of physical and mental strain, and limited support from family and friends. The relationship between the caregiver and the parent was the best predictor of sustained commitment to caregiving. One aspect of the employees' work experience made a small, but important contribution to respondents' future care plans. Those employees who frequently adjusted their work schedule and routine to accommodate parent care demands were less likely to sustain their caregiving commitment. Reasons for these findings are explored and implications for social policy and clinical practice are discussed.