A tobacco and alcohol use profile of San Francisco's Chinese community

Relatively little is known about Asian American tobacco and alcohol use patterns. This is particularly true of Chinese living in the United States--either U.S.-born or non-U.S.-born Chinese. This article presents data from a research project studying tobacco and alcohol use patterns in San Francisco's Chinese community. Data were secured both from focus groups and a self-report telephone survey of a random sample of 1,808 Chinese residents in San Francisco. This results indicate that the prevalence of both tobacco and alcohol use is lower for San Francisco's Chinese population than for the general population. Moreover, those persons who report smoking tend to be different from those who report consuming alcohol. The study concludes that specific, culturally relevant tobacco and alcohol prevention programs should be designed to better reach this target population.     

Neighborhood change within the Canadian ethnic mosaic, 1986–1991

This paper examines the neighborhoodpatterns in three major Canadian metropolitan areasbetween 1986 and 1991. Data are obtained from 1986 and1991 profile census files and two Special Tabulationsof 1986 and 1991 Canadian census. The data indicatethat the first pathway of neighborhood change is thediversification that takes place among charter-onlyneighborhoods with the introduction of a sizableEuropean presence, followed by Asians and then blacks. The second pathway featuring racial uniformityprimarily takes place in multi-ethnic neighborhoodscontaining one or more visible minority groups. Multivariate analysis suggests that the increase inracial and ethnic diversity in neighborhoods isrelated to the efforts of visible minorities,especially Asians, seeking out neighborhoods withEuropeans.     

Betting Decision Under Break-Streak Pattern: Evidence from Casino Gaming

Cognitive bias is prevalent among gamblers, especially those with gambling problems. Grounded in the heuristics theories, this study contributes to the literature by examining a cognitive bias triggered by the break streak pattern in the casino setting. We postulate that gamblers tend to bet on the latest outcome when there is a break-streak pattern. Moreover, three determinants of the betting decision under break-streak pattern, including the streak length of the alternative outcome, the frequency of the latest outcome, and gender, were identified and examined in this study. A non-participatory observational study was conducted among the Cussec gamblers in a casino in Macao. An analysis of 1229 bets confirms our postulation, particularly when the streak of the alternative outcome is long, the latest outcome is frequent, and the gamblers are females. The findings provide meaningful implications for casino management and public policymakers regarding the minimization of gambling harm.     

From Foster Care to Adoption and Guardianship: A Twenty-First Century Challenge

For nearly four decades, child welfare policy and practice have focused on the achievement of legal permanence for children in foster care. Although federal child welfare policy has resulted in the movement of children from state custody to legally permanent adoptive or guardianship families, little is known about the quality and enduring nature of these placements. A significant challenge of the twenty-first century child welfare system is how to ensure the well-being of children currently living with adoptive parents or guardians. This paper discusses child welfare policy and trends related to post-permanency well-being, including the decrease in Title IV-E foster care caseloads nationwide and the simultaneous increase in Title IV-E adoptive and guardianship caseloads. We highlight the needs of a twenty-first century child welfare system, including increased federal efforts to ensure child permanence and well-being after legal adoption or guardianship has been achieved, as well as more rigorous longitudinal and interdisciplinary research focused on the post-permanency adjustment of children and their families.     

基于Windows2000远程教育平台的开发和建设

近年来,随着计算机网络技术的飞速发展,国内外都在大力开发和推广基于internet的远程教育技术,这种教育系统以多媒体应用程序为基础,通过计算机网络将教师的图像,声音,作业传送给学生,通过实时或非实时来实现。本文介绍怎样利用Windows2000中的多媒体应用程序来搭建适合于远程教育的应用平台。     

Measuring Mutual Help Willingness and Criteria among Hong Kong People: Confirmatory Factor Analyses

Mutual help has been often found to be beneficial for people’s well-being in clinical settings. Research in the general population, however, is relatively limited, partly due to the lack of applicable measurement tools. The present study attempted to develop two scales to measure mutual help willingness and criteria and test their psychometric properties among a community sample of Hong Kong people (n = 951). Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the hypothetical models fitted the data very well. Results also indicated that though the willingness to seek help and to give help was significantly correlated, Hong Kong people were generally more willing to give help than to seek help. Age had a negative effect on help-seeking willingness, which can not be explained by education level. A set of criteria were applied similarly when people decided on help-giving and help-seeking. Agreement with the criteria was negatively correlated with age but the associations became negligible when education level was controlled. Research and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

RDS的接收技术

讨论了广播多工（ＲＤＳ）的接收技术，给出了接收机的基本结构，它包括载波层、调制层、基带层的硬件结构，以及信号层（或数据层）的软件实现，并以自己的方法建立了样机模型。整个系统和ＥＢＶ的ＲＤＳ规范同我国刚制定的ＲＤＳ规范一致。     

Uncle Long Legs' Letter Box; A Letter Counseling Service for Children in Hong Kong

During the growing up process, children face many challenges. They need support and guidance from adults whom they can trust. Uncle Long Legs' Letter Box provides a letter counseling service for children aged from around 10 to 14 years, who are mainly studying in primary four to junior secondary school. Using letters as the medium, children are encouraged to seek help from Uncle Long Legs when they are facing problems related to family, friendship, and study. In letters, children are often more willing to disclose their personal feelings and problems than they are in face-to-face contacts. The project was started in 1994 in a children and youth center. Up to July 2001, more than fifteen thousand letters have been received from about eight thousand children. Now the service has expanded to five centers and about 120 volunteer counselors are involved. This article summarizes the working experience of Uncle Long Legs' Letter Box and discusses the strengths and limitations of letter counseling to children.     

Accountability to Welfare Service Users: Challenges and Responses of Service Providers

Influenced by the consumerist sentiment in New Public Management,the last decades have witnessed a revival of the call for accountabilityto service users in the public service sector. As an act ofaccountability, social care and health care professionals areincreasingly obliged to involve their service users in the serviceplanning and monitoring process. Despite the popularity of thisaccountability and user involvement rhetoric, critics have,however, been skeptical of the prevailing user involvement initiativesas an effective measure of accountability to service users (Barnes and Wistow, 1994a,1994b; Bowl, 1996; Peck et al., 2002; Rea, 2004). Based on astudy of user involvement in the welfare sector of Hong Kong,this paper argues that the discourse of accountability to theservice users can be a source of unrest for welfare professionals,in the manifestation of accountability as a power relationship.Their ensuing response is to accommodate the ensuing challengearising from the demand for accountability to service usersby manoeuvring the accountability discourse. It is the contentionof this paper that the institutional inclusion of welfare serviceusers into a discursive space is a necessary but not sufficientcondition for the realization of a mandate of accountabilityto welfare service users.     

RDS编码器的实现技术

介绍了广播数据系统（ＲａｄｉｏｎＤａｔａＳｙｓｔｅｍ，简称ＲＳＤ）利用现有调频立体声电台，在其基带频谱的上边界外（５７ｋＨｚ±２ｋＨｚ处）附加一块用ＤＰＳＫ方式调制的数据信息的频谱（一般称其为附加信近）多工地传送广播信息的基本原理，讨论了发端编码器的结构、实现方案以及波形成形截短的影响，并给出了一个实际模型。