Labour crunch,foreign workers and policy responses: the experience of Japan

"Japan has experienced labour shortages since the late 1960s....The present study is an attempt to analyse the Japanese government's response to circumvent labour shortages. It focuses on two aspects: perception of Japanese society towards the increasing presence of foreign workers in Japan and associated problems; and measures taken by the government to overcome labour crunch. These aspects are examined within the [framework of an] increasing flow of foreigners to Japan during the past decades." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Effect of Sociocultural Context and Parenting Style on Scholastic Achievement among Iranian Adolescents

School grades, family demographics and responses to the parental authority questionnaire were assessed in 240 eighth‐grade students in the southern, central and northern parts of Tehran, Iran's capital. The result showed that poorer families with traditional values had more authoritarian attitudes toward parenting than richer families with more modern values. In contrast to the studies conducted in East Asian societies, the current study found that authoritative parenting was the style associated with the highest academic outcome. Tests of mediation and moderation effects showed that the relation between parenting style and academic outcome was independent of sociocultural context.     

Anopheles culicifacies giles: Adult ecological parameters measured in rural punjab province, pakistan using capture-mark-release-recapture and dissection methods, with comparative observations onAn. stephensi liston andAn. subpictus grassi

Summary Dispersal, immigration and emigration rates, horizontal and vertical survivorship and absolute population size were estimated for micropopulations ofAn. culicifacies, An. stephensi andAn. subpictus at a series of cattle sheds in rural Punjab Province, Pakistan, during November 1979 and May 1980 using capture-mark-release-recapture and dissection methods. Dispersal was temperature-related, with populations more vagile during May. Mean dispersal distance per individual was low for all species. More than 70% of all recaptures were taken at the point of release and the longest detected flight was 1250 meters. Horizontal survivorship was greater during November and was always less than vertical survivorship calculated from dissection agegrading data. Survivorship during the nulliparous period was greater than survivorship throughout total life, indicating the survivorship curve may be slightly sigmoid. Daily population sizes of endemic and immigrating females and males were calculated usingBailey's (1952) modification of the Lincoln Index, with the daily captures adjusted for immigration which was highest in May. Daily additions to the indoor resting population exclusive of immigrants were estimated using the method ofManly andParr (1968). The relationship of the present findings to malaria transmission and genetic control were discussed.     

Bridging the Gaps between Impact Assessments and Resettlement Planning: A Case Study of Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project,Bangladesh

The traditional methodologies including spatial decision support systems have at times showed their ineffectiveness in terms of gathering, analyzing and incorporating diversified views of affected persons into resettlement planning. This ineffectiveness is in dealing with unstructured problems and uncertainty in analyzing alternative strategies. This paper therefore proposes an integrated methodology (combination of argumentative mapping and qualitative probabilistic networks) to counter these limitations. The new methodology was introduced in a large-scale infrastructure project to verify its applicability. Results derived from the study not only provide better insights into resettlement-related problems, but also indicate critical management options for desired objectives.     

Publication Delay in Iranian Scholarly Journals

Scholarly periodicals in Iran are considered main information resources in the development of knowledge in scholarly areas. About 566 periodicals have publication licenses from the Commission of Scholarly Periodicals Evaluation of Ministry of Science, Research & Technology (MSRT), with sixty-eight published in English. This paper studies the publication delay of twenty-six Iranian scholarly periodicals which are published in Persian in Iran, not those Iranian journals which are published in English in Iran or out of the country. The peer review and scholarly publication processes in Iranian journals are quite lengthy and need improvement. There was no significant relationship between publication delay in Persian scholarly periodicals and their impact factor as presented by the Islamic World Science Citation Center (titled ISC). Finally, the authors offer some solutions for improving the publication system of Iranian scholarly journals and decreasing the publication interval of these journals.     

ON FRAGILE GROUNDS: A REPLICATION OF “ARE MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS DIFFERENT IN TERMS OF CULTURAL INTEGRATION?”

This study is a replication of “Are Muslim Immigrants Different in terms of Cultural Integration?” by Alberto Bisin, Eleonora Patacchini, Thierry Verdier and Yves Zenou, published in the Journal of the European Economic Association, 6, 445–456, 2008. Bisin et al. (2008) report that they have 5,963 observations in their study. Using their empirical setup, we can only identify 1,901 relevant observations in the original data. After removing missing values we are left with 818 observations. We cannot replicate any of their results and our estimations yield no support for their claims.     

Role of Facebook use in predicting bridging and bonding social capital of Pakistani university students

ABSTRACT

The explanatory study aimed to examine the role of Facebook use (intensity of Facebook use, Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors, duration of use, and number of ties), motives of using Facebook (making new social ties, maintaining existing social ties, seeking and sharing information, self-expression, self-documentation, and recreation), and sociodemographic characteristics (age, education, gender, and monthly family income) in predicting the formation of bridging and bonding social capital among youth. Opting Putnam’s theory of social capital, a survey was conducted from eight randomly selected universities of Lahore, Pakistan. A total of 1,245 students, had an average age of 21, were participated in this study. Stepwise multiple linear regression technique was used to explain bridging and bonding social capital. The study found that motives of using Facebook had a major role in predicting bridging and bonding social capital of the students. The intensity of Facebook use and Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors were also positively correlated with bridging and bonding social capital. Except for the age for bonding social capital, no other sociodemographic variables had an influence on bridging and bonding social capital.     

An African Reflection on Tahrir Square

This essay understands the significance of Tahrir Square as a radical shift both n the way of doing politics, from armed struggle to popular struggle, and in the definition of political identity, from religious to territorial. It seeks to understand the historical significance of the shift by placing it in the context of technologies of colonial rule (both the Ottoman millet system and British indirect rule) and post-colonial attempts to rethink and reform this mode of rule. The result is a historical reflection that begins with Steve Biko and the Soweto Uprising in 1976, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha and John Garang in post-colonial Sudan, and closes with Sayyid Qutb and the significance of Tahrir Square.

Este ensayo entiende el significado de la plaza Tahrir como un cambio radical, tanto en la forma como se hace política, de una lucha armada a una lucha popular, como en la definición de la identidad política, de la religiosa hasta la territorial. Busca entender el significado histórico del cambio, situándolo en el contexto de las tecnologías de gobierno colonial (tanto el sistema de mijo otomano como el dominio indirecto británico) y los intentos poscoloniales para replantear y reformar este modo de gobierno. El resultado es una reflexión histórica que comienza con Steve Biko y la sublevación de Soweto en 1976, Mahmoud Mohamed Taha y John Garang en el Sudán poscolonial y termina con Sayyid Qutb y el significado de la plaza Tahrir.

本文将埃及解放广场的意义理解为一个剧烈转变,无论是在从事政治的方式上,即从武装斗争转变为民众抗争,还是在政治认同的定义上从宗教性转变到领土性。文章试图通过将这种变迁置于殖民统治（奥斯曼帝国的米勒特制和英国的间接统治）的技术语境下理解其历史意义,理解重思、变革统治模式的后殖民尝试。其结果便形成一种历史反思,它以史蒂夫·比科和1976年索维托起义、后殖民时期苏丹的马哈茂德·穆罕默德·塔哈和约翰·加朗为开端,终止于赛义德·库特布和解放广场的意义。