Comparing trends in infanticides in 28 countries, 1960–2009

The term ‘infanticide’ refers to the homicide of a child younger than one year old. In this article, we describe infanticide trends in 28 industrialized countries between 1960 and 2009. The analysis is based on the cause of death data from the WHO Mortality Database and national materials. The purpose is to compare those trends in all these 28 countries not to compare countries per se. Cause of death statistics are based on ICD classification. During the review period, ICD classification changed three times. In addition to describing infanticide trends, we will analyse the impact of those changes on statistical infanticide levels, to be sure that changes in trends could be seen as real, not statistical artefacts. According to our analysis, the change from ICD-7 to ICD-9 in 1968–1970 seems to have had some impact on registered infanticide mortality levels in three of the studied countries. In other countries, the changes did not have any general impact on registered infanticide levels. During the period, infanticide rates decreased in almost all European countries, and increased or were stable in most non-European industrialized countries. Even in Europe, there were significant differences in the decreasing trend between countries. We also found some structural variation behind the trend figures, which raised the question of whether the aggregated infanticide levels really describe an identical phenomenon in different countries.     

Analysis of 15 autosomal STR loci in the population of the State of Acre,Brazilian Amazonia

Acre was the last state of Brazil to be inhabited by non-indigenous individuals. The aim of this study was to calculate the allele frequencies of 15 STR loci in 503 unrelated individuals living in Acre, as well as to estimate statistical parameters of forensic interest. The Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium test performed in the overall sample, as well as population comparisons between sub-samples from the five regions in Acre did not reveal the presence of population substructure. This is the first report of STR data in this population and the results showed that a single database is suitable for all the regions analyzed.     

Developmental validation of 15 X chromosomal short tandem repeat markers

The use of X chromosomal short tandem repeat (STR) markers has been greatly increasing in the forensic setting. Using guidelines set forth previously for the validation of autosomal and Y STRs, aspects of the feasibility of routine X chromosomal STR use were evaluated. Two mini-X chromosomal STR multiplexes capable of amplifying 15 total markers were developed and utilized to determine allele nomenclature, allele/genotype frequencies, mutation rates, and linkage between markers. Additionally, a concordance study between these multiplexes and a commercially available kit was performed. Here, the authors present an overview of this extensive developmental validation study.     

Development of 30 InDel markers typing system and genetic analysis in five different Chinese populations

Allele frequencies of 30 InDel markers previously selected and validated for forensic purpose were assessed in 419 unrelated individuals originating from five different populations of Chinese Han, Chinese Hui, Uighur, Mongolian and Tibetan in P.R. China. Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium tests and linkage disequilibrium analysis were performed and the results showed that allele frequency distributions of the 30 InDel markers had meet the genetic equilibrium in all of the five populations and the InDel markers on same chromosome did not generate any linkage block. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) indicated that genetic variation among the 5 studied populations represent only 4.00% of the total genetic diversity. We observed the cumulative power of discrimination (CPD) for each studied population was 0.99999999999841 in Chinese Han population, 0.99999999999690 in Chinese Hui population, 0.99999999999709 in Uighur population, 0.99999999999772 in Mongolian population and 0.99999999999854 in Tibetan population.     

关于财经类专业统计学创新教学改革的思考

统计学课程是高等院校财经类专业的基础核心课程,其主要目的是培养和提高学生的统计思维能力和统计基本技能。近年来统计教学改革在突出实践性和应用性上取得了一定的成效,但仍存在着例如对统计学学科性质和目标的认知偏差、教学方法单一及实践能力的训练不足等问题。需要做好确立财经类专业统计学课程的教学目标,不断改进教学方法和教学手段,充分运用多媒体教学,加强计算机教学的应用,真正落实实践教学环节,并正确处理好教学与教材、多媒体与板书以及基础课与专业课之间的关系。     

Immigration and the Remaking of New York

Abstract

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished quotas that favored European immigrants, and for the first time placed all countries on an equal footing. The law resulted in increased overall immigration, and altered the sources of immigrants to the U.S. Since 1970, New York City has absorbed 2.6 million immigrants, primarily from non-European sources, who have dramatically altered the City's racial/Hispanic mix. Using immigration and birth records, as well as data from decennial censuses, this paper examines immigration to New York and assesses the demographic impact of these flows on the City's population.

Current immigrant flows have noticeably increased the ethnic diversity within the major race/Hispanic groups. This is largely due to increases in refugee flows, and to recent changes in immigration law that allow for “diversity” visas, which are aimed at countries that are under-represented in immigration flows to the U.S. Diversity immigration has provided New York with a continuing flow of new groups, most recently from Bangladesh, Mexico, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, who have established enclaves in many of the City's neighborhoods. The increasing diversity poses serious challenges for social service and health care professionals, who need to devise new strategies to deal with the disparate socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, and belief systems of new ethnic groups. This is especially important given that New York's ethnic mix will continue to be churned, especially by way of diversity immigration and refugee flows from all parts of the globe.     

Ethnic statistics and social classifications in France: how the ‘black community’ was born

Abstract

The status of France's ethnic minorities has become a major issue in recent years owing to the riots in October and November of 2005, as well as the National Assembly debates on the Taubira law,1 1. Christiane Taubira is a French female politician and activist born 2 February 1952, in Cayenne, French Guyana. She is a militant of the PRG (Parti Radical de Gauche) et ‘deputée’ (a member of the French National Parliament). She is best known for the law that she devised and proposed and bears her name, the Taubira Law. Voted in 21 May 2001, it recognizes the slave trades and slavery as a crime against humanity. ethnic statistics, affirmative action, and the memory and commemoration of slavery and the slave trade,2 2. The decision to commemorate slavery was taken on 30 January 2006, by the French President Jacques Chirac. The date for the commemoration is 10 May, each year. and communautarisme 3 3. Communautaire/communautarisme/communautariste refers to something along the lines of ‘multiculturalism’, although its connotations are almost entirely negative. Communautarisme, to the French, is what happens when you let immigrants form their own communities, speak their own languages, and practice their own religions. Consequently, France becomes less ‘French’ and more open to foreign values and cultural practices (http://inthefray.org/content/view/482/39). .The present paper shows how, against the aforementioned backdrop, the black community is creating itself as a visible group ‘endowed with value systems and representation systems’ (Champagne, P., 1984. La manifestation: La production de l'evenement politique. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 52–53(1), 18–41), and how the positions taken by the various actors (associations, journalists and politicians) have contributed to this process of legitimation. Thus, it appears that although France's Blacks are still a largely fragmented group, they are constructing an identity for themselves in the republic via a process that is a reaction to the apparent rigidity of France's republican system and to the real (albeit denied) stigmatization and discrimination that some Blacks say they are subjected to on a daily basis.

This work is a revised version of a paper accepted for presentation at the ‘Strangers, Aliens and Foreigners’ conference organized in Mansfield College, Oxford, UK, between Tuesday 22 September and Thursday 24 September, 2009.     

How Much Disagreement is Good for Democratic Deliberation?

The ideal of deliberation requires that citizens engage in reasonable discussion despite disagreements. In practice, if their experience is to match this normative ideal, participants in an actual deliberation should prefer moderate disagreement to conflict-free discussion within homogeneous groups, and to conflict-driven discussion where differences are intractable. This article proposes a research design and methods for assessing the quality of a deliberative event based on the perceptions of the participants themselves. In a structured deliberative event, over 2,000 individuals were assigned to small groups composed of about 10 persons of varying levels of ideological difference to discuss health care reform in California. We find that participants experience higher satisfaction with deliberation under moderate ideological difference than when they are in homogeneous or in highly disparate groups. That moderate disagreement induces optimal deliberation is consistent with normative expectations and empirically demonstrates the deliberative quality of this event.     

USAID,Population Control,and NGO-Led Democratization in Egypt: The Fate of the ICPD Programme of Action

Critics of US democracy-promotion strategies of the last 20 years ask: what kind of democracy is promoted by US public agencies and associated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), how is it promoted, and for what purpose(s)? This paper draws on interviews with NGO, USAID, and UN representatives, gathered in Egypt in 2001, to describe the fate of Egyptian women's advocacy NGOs seeking to implement the pro-democracy platform of action of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). It offers some support for critics' contentions both that external (here USAID) pro-democracy interventions may actually obstruct democratization, and that the instrumental nature of US democracy promotion may mean that such activities are quickly eliminated or downgraded when they conflict with more primary US policy goals.     

全球化初期的闽商——人口、技术和制度

由于明朝海禁政策的限制,在以福建东南沿海区域为中心的全球化初期的历史背景下,有许多关于闽商的真实史实都被边缘化,甚至没有记载,因此,借由弗兰克的观点,我们需要用一种全球视野来看当时的世界经济,从人口、技术和制度三方面来还原全球化初期16到18世纪里真实的闽商和真实的中国。