Home,work and community: skilled international migration and expatriate women in Singapore

While skilled labour migration across international borders is a phenomenon of increasing significance in the age of globalization and an important component in the production of global cities, it has not been given sufficient attention in traditional migration analyses.
Recent research has focused on institutional mechanisms regulating the patterns of skill transfer rather than the individual experience of being part of the international labour circuit. Women, in particular, have usually been relegated to the role of "trailing spouses" and are generally invisible in the migration process.
Using a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews, this article attempts to reinstate the importance of women's roles by portraying them as active agents who adopt a range of strategies in negotiating the move and coming to terms with the transformations wrought by the move in the domains of home, work and community. It argues that skilled labour migration is a strongly gendered process, producing different sets of experiences for the men and women involved in it.
While international circulation often represents "career moves" for expatriate men, their spouses often experience a devalorization of their productive functions and a relegation to the domestic sphere. As an adaptive strategy, expatriate women often turn to the social and community sphere to reach for grounding in their lives.
The article also points to the diversity of "expatriate experiences": while "western" expatriates tend to recreate a more exclusive world by drawing on strong institutional support, "Asian" expatriates find that they have to navigate much finer social and cultural divides between themselves and the host society.     

Graphical representation of survival curves in the presence of time-dependent categorical covariates with application to liver transplantation

Graphical representation of survival curves is often used to illustrate associations between exposures and time-to-event outcomes. However, when exposures are time-dependent, calculation of survival probabilities is not straightforward. Our aim was to develop a method to estimate time-dependent survival probabilities and represent them graphically. Cox models with time-dependent indicators to represent state changes were fitted, and survival probabilities were plotted using pre-specified times of state changes. Time-varying hazard ratios for the state change were also explored. The method was applied to data from the Adult-to-Adult Living Donor Liver Transplantation Cohort Study (A2ALL). Survival curves showing a ‘split’ at a pre-specified time t allow for the qualitative comparison of survival probabilities between patients with similar baseline covariates who do and do not experience a state change at time t. Time since state change interactions can be visually represented to reflect changing hazard ratios over time. A2ALL study results showed differences in survival probabilities among those who did not receive a transplant, received a living donor transplant, and received a deceased donor transplant. These graphical representations of survival curves with time-dependent indicators improve upon previous methods and allow for clinically meaningful interpretation.     

Measuring the lifetime experience of domestic violence: application of the life history calendar method

In the absence of a "gold standard," research on domestic violence relies primarily on self-report, the quality of which is known to decline as the length of the recall period increases. Eliciting valid and reliable self-report data is crucial to the development of prevention and intervention policies and services. Nevertheless, existing measures typically do not incorporate devices to facilitate respondents' recall of the lifetime experience of domestic violence. This article describes the application of the Life History Calendar (LHC) method (Freedman, Thornton, Camburn, Alwin, & Young-DeMarco, 1988) to increase a respondent's recall of domestic violence victimization over the lifecourse. The LHC method elicits memorable information of a personal nature (e.g., children's birth dates) and uses this information to facilitate the recall of less memorable events. A recent field test of this LHC measure indicates its utility in assessing domestic violence victimization, which takes place in a complex sequence of episodes and often involves multiple perpetrators over the lifecourse.     

尼采对历史及其历史教学的批判

尼采认为 ,历史是人的生命意志的反映 ,它是英雄人物在瞬间的艺术创作冲动的产物。人的历史开始于“个人具有创造性的自我解放欲望之际” ,这是尼采历史观的原始起点和意义支撑。他认为真正的历史应该有利于人的创造力的发挥和个体生命的解放 ,而现在的历史已经背离了历史的本来意义 ,成了生命发展的桎梏和障碍。现代历史教育是错误历史观与错误人生观相结合的产物 ,是一种摧残人性的教育 ,它使受教育者变得虚伪、迟缓、猜疑、抵触 ,并以软弱的人格、麻木的心态期待着刺激性“事件”的发生 ,哪怕它危及自己的生命。     

How parental drug use and drug treatment compliance relate to family reunification

This study uses Cox regression to assess the relationships among parental drug use, drug treatment compliance, and reunification from substitute care. The study finds that drug treatment compliance is associated with faster reunification, even when accounting for ongoing drug use and three parenting measures. The findings are consistent with a conceptual framework suggesting that certain client actions, such as drug treatment compliance, may serve as markers that substantially affect client outcomes.     

Modeling the Effects of Expressed Emotion,Psychiatric Symptomology,and Marital Quality Levels on Male and Female Verbal Aggression

Previous research has linked expressed emotion (EE) levels and psychiatric symptomology, whereas other empirical efforts have examined the relationship between EE and marital relationship variables. Still other research has linked psychological conditions with acts of aggression, and the impact of marital issues within this domain of inquiry also has been explored. The study presented here examined the combined effects of EE, marital quality, and psychiatric symptomology on displays of verbal aggression by both relationship partners. Both husbands' and wives' reports of marital quality were predictive of both husbands' and wives' verbal aggression levels; here, reports of lower marital quality were associated with higher levels of verbal aggression. Additionally, husbands' and wives' reports of psychological symptomology in self and partner were important paths to marital quality, as were husbands' and wives' reports of EE levels. Further, some evidence was generated that supports the mediating role of marital quality with regard to EE and psychological symptomology. However, the overall fit indices of the models tested in this empirical effort were modest. Limitations that concern the instruments utilized in the present study are discussed in this regard.     

Empirical Bayes Small-Area Estimation Using Logistic Regression Models and Summary Statistics

Many of the available methods for estimating small-area parameters are model-based approaches in which auxiliary variables are used to predict the variable of interest. For models that are nonlinear, prediction is not straightforward. MacGibbon and Tomberlin and Farrell, MacGibbon, and Tomberlin have proposed approaches that require microdata for all individuals in a small area. In this article, we develop a method, based on a second-order Taylor-series expansion to obtain model-based predictions, that requires only local-area summary statistics for both continuous and categorical auxiliary variables. The methodology is evaluated using data based on a U.S. Census.     

简论女丹修炼的特殊机理

女丹功法,又称"坤诀",是指妇女修炼内丹之法。女性之内丹修炼活动虽可追溯至唐代,但其学说成熟则较晚。男女两性存在着生理和心理上的差异,因此,内丹修炼在功法和步骤上也应有所区别。传统中医学原理可以帮助我们阐释女丹修炼程序及"斩赤龙"的特殊机理及其意义。女丹功法的关键步骤为"太阴炼形"之术,其关窍为膻中穴和血海;"阳神出壳"是女子丹功炼至最高层次时所出现的现象,炼功者此时要格外谨慎。