Nonmarital Relationships and Changing Perceptions of Marriage Among African American Young Adults

Cohabitation has become increasingly widespread over the past decade. Such trends have given rise to debates about the relation between cohabitation and marriage in terms of what cohabitation means for individual relationship trajectories and for the institution of marriage more generally. Using recent data from a sample of almost 800 African Americans and fixed effects modeling procedures, in the present study the authors shed some light on these debates by exploring the extent to which cohabitation, relative to both singlehood and dating, was associated with within‐individual changes in African Americans' marital beliefs during the transition to adulthood. The findings suggest that cohabitation is associated with changes in marital beliefs, generally in ways that repositioned partners toward marriage, not away from it. This was especially the case for women. These findings suggest that, for young African American women, cohabitation holds a distinct place relative to dating and, in principle if not practice, relative to marriage.     

Salient Beliefs About Earthquake Hazards and Household Preparedness

Prior research has found little or no direct link between beliefs about earthquake risk and household preparedness. Furthermore, only limited work has been conducted on how people's beliefs influence the nature and number of preparedness measures adopted. To address this gap, 48 qualitative interviews were undertaken with residents in three urban locations in New Zealand subject to seismic risk. The study aimed to identify the diverse hazard and preparedness‐related beliefs people hold and to articulate how these are influenced by public education to encourage preparedness. The study also explored how beliefs and competencies at personal, social, and environmental levels interact to influence people's risk management choices. Three main categories of beliefs were found: hazard beliefs; preparedness beliefs; and personal beliefs. Several salient beliefs found previously to influence the preparedness process were confirmed by this study, including beliefs related to earthquakes being an inevitable and imminent threat, self‐efficacy, outcome expectancy, personal responsibility, responsibility for others, and beliefs related to denial, fatalism, normalization bias, and optimistic bias. New salient beliefs were also identified (e.g., preparedness being a “way of life”), as well as insight into how some of these beliefs interact within the wider informational and societal context.     

现代作家关于师德建设的论述

教师的道德力量、人格魅力,就是教师的灵魂。鲁迅、郭沫若、茅盾、老舍等现代作家,非常重视师魂的铸造。他们认为,教育信仰、爱心、责任心、奉献精神等是教师人格诸因素中的核心构件。现代作家关于师德的精辟论述,对于市场经济背景下我国教师职业道德的建设,有着重要的现实指导意义。     

A new class of mixture models for differential gene expression in DNA microarray data

One of the fundamental issues in analyzing microarray data is to determine which genes are expressed and which ones are not for a given group of subjects. In datasets where many genes are expressed and many are not expressed (i.e., underexpressed), a bimodal distribution for the gene expression levels often results, where one mode of the distribution represents the expressed genes and the other mode represents the underexpressed genes. To model this bimodality, we propose a new class of mixture models that utilize a random threshold value for accommodating bimodality in the gene expression distribution. Theoretical properties of the proposed model are carefully examined. We use this new model to examine the problem of differential gene expression between two groups of subjects, develop prior distributions, and derive a new criterion for determining which genes are differentially expressed between the two groups. Prior elicitation is carried out using empirical Bayes methodology in order to estimate the threshold value as well as elicit the hyperparameters for the two component mixture model. The new gene selection criterion is demonstrated via several simulations to have excellent false positive rate and false negative rate properties. A gastric cancer dataset is used to motivate and illustrate the proposed methodology.     

‘Would Others Think It Is Okay to Express My Feelings?’ Regulation of Anger,Sadness and Physical Pain in Gujarati Children in India

Despite the recognition of cultural influences on emotional development, very little is known regarding emotion regulation in children from different cultures. This study examined beliefs regarding social acceptability and regulatory behaviors in 80 children (aged five to six years and eight to nine years) from two urban communities (suburban and old city) in Gujarat, India. The children's explicit reasons and their preferred methods of expression and control were also investigated. The results revealed that the children considered others to be less accepting of their expressions of anger and sadness and, in turn, they reported controlling their anger and sadness more than their physical pain. The remarkable congruence between children's beliefs regarding acceptability and reported behaviors was consistent with the notion that cognitions that focus on evaluations of others are particularly salient in guiding socioemotional behavior in a collectivist culture like India. Within‐culture differences were also imperative, indicating that the children in the old city considered others to be less accepting of all of their expressions, and reported controlling these expressions more than the children in the suburban community. These differences are discussed in the context of variations in broader cultural values (i.e., the extent of collectivist orientation and adherence to Hindu ideology) in the two communities.     

当代民间信仰的社会服务研究——基于湖南省浏阳市的专题调研

民间信仰与其他宗教一样是我党的重要统战对象,也是当代中国社会中的一支重要统战力量。该研究的实地调查实施于2010年3月至2013年8月之间,曾对浏阳各地至少20多处民间庙宇进行过调查访问,尤其是对仙人庙开展过前后共计五次重点个案调查。浏阳市民间信仰的专题调研表明,当前民间信仰的社会服务内容主要包括三个方面：（1）公益慈善服务;（2）聚众娱乐服务;（3）道德教化服务。调查也发现,民间信仰在发挥社会服务功能过程中存在四个方面亟待解决或有待改进的问题：（1）民间庙宇在公益慈善服务中的被动性问题;（2）民间庙宇所聚社会资源的利用不均衡问题;（3）部分民间庙宇存在的非民主管理问题;（4）民间庙宇所发挥道德教化功能的薄弱问题。创新民间信仰社会服务事业的机制可以从三个方面着手：（1）加强民间信仰参与社会服务的理念教育;（2）转变与提升民间庙宇的管理模式;（3）强化对民间庙宇管理模式的监管与引导。     

论土族的“猫鬼神”崇拜

土族民间信仰的内容特别丰富,有多种文化的因子,其中精怪信仰是其重要的组成部分之一。在此,文章主要对土族地区半神半鬼的"猫鬼神"信仰进行了剖析。     

Moral Aspects of Executive Leadership

This paper argues that the crisis in management is a crisis in leadership and that the heart of leadership is the moral challenge for managers to see themselves and others as colleagues and collaborators. The search for a new leadership paradigm is a call to foster the human spiritual dimension which respects the deepest concerns and values of everyone in the enterprise. Islamic beliefs and heritage provide a natural basis for transformational leadership and for implementing a paradigm shift which integrates spirituality and work. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Taiwanese–Canadian Mothers' Beliefs About Personal Freedom for Their Young Children

This study examined Taiwanese–Canadian mothers’ conceptions of personal freedom in everyday situations for their children and the influence of acculturation on their beliefs. Forty mothers of six‐ to eight‐year‐old children participated in a semistructured interview and sorting task. Interview responses revealed that, regardless of acculturation, child decision‐making was important and that mothers should negotiate and compromise with their child on everyday issues such as clothing, food, activities, daily routine and homework. They believed that child resistance was motivated by the children's personal interests, laziness, limit testing and their emotional state. Sources of conflict were resolved by parental authority, discussing/negotiating and conceding to the child. The sorting task also revealed that personal issues were judged as within their children's jurisdiction.     

降低英语课堂焦虑的策略

过高的外语学习焦虑会影响学生在外语课堂中的表现,不利于活跃课堂学习气氛。为了营造一种轻松、活跃的课堂气氛,提高学生英语学习的兴趣,帮助学生克服英语学习的焦虑感是非常重要的。提出了下列策略来降低学生在英语课堂中的学习焦虑:设置合理的测试题、使学生意识到自己的焦虑、帮助学生树立自信心以及改变教师的角色和信念。