浅析社会转型期民间信仰对社会稳定的影响

民间信仰作为一种宗教文化形态,在中国历史上曾发挥过重要的作用。社会转型时期,民间信仰再度出现繁荣复兴的现象,并表现出新的趋势和特征。民间信仰具有＂社会安全阀＂功能,但庞大的民间信仰群体同时也给社会和谐与稳定带来巨大挑战。由于民间信仰具有自发性、松散性等特征,社会转型使其发展具有更多不确定性。在法律制度尚不健全、信仰出现真空而公民意识却不断提高的转型社会背景下,如何应对与民间信仰相伴随的各种显性问题和潜在威胁,已经成为当前我们面临的重要问题。     

Performance of Breast Self-Exam

SUMMARY

Breast cancer is a significant health threat for women and is currently the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women. When breast cancer is diagnosed early in the disease process, the probability of survival is quite high, but when diagnosis is made at a later stage, mortality increases dramatically. Thus, early detection is crucial, and monthly breast self-exam (BSE) is recommended for all women over the age of 20. Despite this recommendation, adherence to BSE guidelines is quite low. The current study investigated the role of perceived susceptibility to breast cancer as it relates to the performance of BSE among a sample of community women. As hypothesized, a significant interaction between perceived susceptibility and age was found such that perceived susceptibility was significantly positively related to BSE performance for older women but was not related to BSE performance among younger women. Although there are certainly other variables associated with BSE performance, the implications of this particular finding for the design of interventions to increase BSE performance are discussed.     

The Influence of Perceived Confidentiality Risks and Attitude on Tanzania Government Employees’ Intention to Adopt Web 2.0 and Social Media for Work-Related Purposes

Studies show that there are many benefits of using Web 2.0 and social media in governments. However, the factors influencing government employees‘ adoption of these technologies are not well known. In this paper, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was integrated with two constructs, namely, perceived confidentiality risks (PCR) and attitude (AT) in order to investigate the factors influencing adoption of these technologies among government employees. The sample consisted of 600 usable responses collected from Tanzania Government Employees. To analyze the data, Structural Equation Modeling was used. Both PCR and AT were found to be influential.     

The role of institutional and governance factors in public–private partnerships infrastructure investments in emerging economies

The overall development and sustained growth of any economy depend heavily on its infrastructure provisioning. Emerging economies are usually characterised by constrained public investments in infrastructure. Budgetary constraints of the governments are one of the major hurdles to these investments. Due to these reasons that governments of emerging economies continuously seek collaborations with the private sector for additional sources of funding infrastructure. Economies with solid institutional and governance frameworks are known to provide a conducive environment for enhanced private sector attraction in the sector. However, emerging economies face greater institutional and governance issues than developed economies, and they sometimes fall short of luring private investments in the infrastructure sector. The objective of this study is to empirically evaluate the role of institutional and governance aspects in private sector attraction in emerging economies. This study provides empirical evidence with a sample of 114 emerging economies over a period of 20 years. Various econometric estimates were developed to explore the interplay between public-private partnership investments and governance factors. The results of the study provide an evidence of a positive association between these factors and private investments in public-private partnership arrangements.