Saving behaviour and earnings uncertainty: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

For the first time, this paper uses a panel data set, the British Household Panel Survey, to analyse saving behaviour in Britain. One objective is to test the precautionary saving hypothesis, according to which households save to self-insure against uncertainty. Our results show that in accordance with this hypothesis, various measures of uncertainty based on earnings variability have a statistically significant effect on households' saving decisions. Moreover, in accordance with the life cycle model, households save more if they expect their financial situation to deteriorate. Received: 15 June 1999/Accepted: 4 January 2001     

Childhood family structure and young adult behaviors

This paper examines a wide variety of forms, and full histories, of family structure to test existing theories of family influences and identify needs for new theories. The focus is on links between childhood family structure and both completed schooling and risk of a nonmarital birth. Using a 27-year span of panel (PSID) data for U.S. children, we find that: (a) change is stressful, (b) timing during childhood is relevant, (c) adults other than parents are important, and (d) two more recently studied family structures (mother-with-grandparent(s) and mother-with-stepfather) do not fit the molds of existing theories. The findings suggest that new theories should consider allocation of resources and reasons people group into family structures. Received: 11 September 1998/Accepted: 27 March 2000     

Intention to emigrate in transition countries: the case of Albania

We analyse the profile of potential emigrants from Albania using data from the Central and Eastern Europe Eurobarometer in 1992. Respondents were asked to rate on a four-point scale the likelihood that they would go to live in Western Europe. Our results show that intention to emigrate is correlated positively with males, education and certain occupations, and negatively with age. There is little relation between emigration and income. Those who support the introduction of a free market in Albania are also more likely to emigrate than those who do not. Received: 24 August 1998/Accepted: 17 April 2000     

Ecosystem resilience, specialized adaptation and population decline: A modern Malthusian theory

The purpose of this article is to construct a theoretical framework characterizing the interactions among economic development, ecosystem equilibrium and possible population decline, and to discuss the population dynamics in the very long run. In our framework, economic activities bridge population and environment. On the one hand, human beings reform the environment through economic activities; on the other hand, economic activities decrease environmental resilience and increase the possibility of an environmental change in a discontinuous and irreversible pattern, as described in Arrow et al. (1995). Furthermore, a highly developed economy also causes over-specialization of human adaptation, which tends to exaggerate the impact of an environmental change on human population size. Received: 19 January 1999/Accepted: 3 July 1999     

Sparse Bayesian variable selection in multinomial probit regression model with application to high-dimensional data classification

Here we consider a multinomial probit regression model where the number of variables substantially exceeds the sample size and only a subset of the available variables is associated with the response. Thus selecting a small number of relevant variables for classification has received a great deal of attention. Generally when the number of variables is substantial, sparsity-enforcing priors for the regression coefficients are called for on grounds of predictive generalization and computational ease. In this paper, we propose a sparse Bayesian variable selection method in multinomial probit regression model for multi-class classification. The performance of our proposed method is demonstrated with one simulated data and three well-known gene expression profiling data: breast cancer data, leukemia data, and small round blue-cell tumors. The results show that compared with other methods, our method is able to select the relevant variables and can obtain competitive classification accuracy with a small subset of relevant genes.     

城市空间关系问题研究——以黄冈与武汉城市圈内周边城市空间关系为例

城市化的快速发展使得城市空间关系不断变化,如何准确界定城市空间关系对城市战略选择至关重要。本文在总结前人对城市空间关系研究的基础上,将城市空间关系分为依附型、竞争型、共生型、异质型四种。进而在此基础上以黄冈为案例,研究黄冈与武汉城市圈内周边城市的关系,并提出黄冈的定位和发展战略。     

略论20世纪法国人类学思想的嬗变

肇始于迪尔凯姆学派的法国人类学在20世纪取得了辉煌的成就.其思想发展进程可概述如下:首先,马塞尔·莫斯和赫兹提出了"二元分类"思想;其后,列维-斯特劳斯在广泛吸收、综合社会学、人类学和语言学等学科思想的基础上,以"二元对立"的认知结构为核心,建构了结构主义人类学.所有这些成果,对皮埃尔·布迪厄在20世纪60年代的人类学研究产生了重要影响.     

布朗族民族文化资源信息化初探

近年来,云南人口较少民族经济发展与文化保护的矛盾日益凸显,民族地区的文化生境不断遭受破坏;加上人口较少民族的价值观念逐渐发生变化,非物质文化遗产传承人出现断层等问题,人口较少民族文化保护形势严峻。云南布朗族在应用信息化手段保护民族文化方面有很好的实践。布朗文化遗产可数字化资源划分为实体和物质文化遗产与口头和非物质文化遗产两大类。按照三级指标评价模型,结合可数字化文化资源的特点,首先聘请专家依据＂可数字化资源评价赋分标准＂对布朗族民族文化资源进行打分,并采用微积分运算公式计算出三级指标的综合评价值,根据最终评价得分来评判布朗族民族文化资源是否具有可数字化的价值。然后,对文化资源进行数字化采集,综合采用静态数字化技术、动态数字化技术和三维数字技术,按照文本数字化、图像数字化、三维图像建立、虚拟物品制作四个数字化级别来进行信息化处理。     

现代学科分类中的“文学人类学”

从现代学科分类情况来看,"文学人类学"主要被放置在人类学、比较文学、文艺学三个学科里,成为三个学科的亚分支,这反映了"文学人类学"目前的现实状况及地位。本文无意争辩学科从属的问题,而是从知识话语学角度探讨现代学科分类体系对"文学人类学"可能造成的遮蔽性。     

公司运营危机预警模型的比较研究——以中国上市公司为例

研究当前国内外公司运营危机预警问题的现状,首先要寻找一套适合于我国上市公司的财务状况识别指标体系,然后依据该指标体系采用不同方法建立运营危机预警模型,最后利用样本公司实际指标数据对各个模型的短期及中期预警效果进行比较分析与实证研究。结果表明,分类树模型的三年期预警准确率都在80%以上。