State Transitions from Rigidity to Fragility and Failure: The Case of Middle East and North Africa

ABSTRACT

The taxonomy of the state’s effective governance capacity present in the literature is evolving around state fragility. However, this article argues that a state moves along the state transition curve, resulting in governance capacity variations over time. It begins as a fragile state, consolidating to becoming a vibrant state, only to embark, eventually, on a downward trajectory through phases of rigidity, decaying, and fragility, before becoming a failed state. About one-third of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries are either fragile or failed states. Only technological change and knowledge accumulation and diffusion can shift this curve upward, thereby increasing a state’s effective governance capacity.     

日本量化质化宽松货币政策效果及原因分析

面对日本长期通货紧缩与经济增长乏力,日本央行开启量化质化宽松货币政策:日本央行持续大肆增加基础货币的投放,大胆采取负利率政策,实施收益率曲线控制,引导社会公众预期。政策实施以来,通胀目标时限一再推迟,政策虽在短期内改善了经济形势,但又受到全球金融市场及外国政策的干扰。究其原因,货币政策传导机制不畅、企业部门缺乏稳定预期、少子老龄化及财政货币政策相互掣肘等因素均影响了货币政策的经济效果。     

Gender Differential Influences of Early Adolescent Risk Factors for the Development of Depressive Affect

Based on a model by Cyranowski, J., et al. (2000), Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 57: 21–27, adolescents at-risk for the development of depressive symptoms were identified. Adolescents were considered at-risk if they had 2 or more of the following early adolescent risk factors: (1) insecure parental attachment, (2) anxious/inhibited temperament, (3) low instrumental coping skills, and (4) early pubertal maturation. Nonrisk adolescents had zero or just one risk factor. Using data from a 10-year longitudinal study on the development of adolescents’ health, with 5 points of data assessment (i.e., 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, and 12 + 4 follow-up), the impact of the four early adolescent risk factors on the development of emotional tone was investigated. Emotional tone was measured by the Emotional Tone Scale of the SIQYA (Petersen, A. C., et al. (1984), J. Youth Adolesc. 13: 93–111), an indicator for positive emotional tone and low depressed affect. Growth curve modeling was applied to reveal significant gender differences in level and slope for the development of emotional tone over the adolescent years. Latent Growth Curve Models can be seen as a combination consisting of repeated measures analysis of variance and autoregressive analyses to evaluate the latent change of the variables under investigation (Rovine, M. J., and Molenaar, P. C. M. (2000), Multivar. Behav. Res. 35(1): 51–88). At-risk girls revealed poorer levels of emotional tone which stayed almost at the same low level up to young adulthood (i.e., 12 + 4), indicating a long lasting impact of the specified risk factors. In contrast, at-risk boys showed poorer emotional tone in early adolescence, but at the end of adolescence boys at-risk had the same level of emotional tone as nonrisk boys. At-risk girls showed significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms at grade 12 and at 12 + 4.Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He received his master’s degree from the Technical University Berlin in 1989 and his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University in 1993. His research interests encompass developmental psychology and methodology.Senior Vice President for Programs at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek, Michigan. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago.     

论我国公平——效率“U”型曲线模型的构建

本文在分析库兹涅茨的倒“U”模型的基础上,构建出典型的公平——效率“U”型曲线模型,并结合改革开放以来我国经济发展与政策施行的实际,初步证明了“U”型曲线的成立。     

Gender Determination of Adult Individuals by Three‐Dimensional Modeling of Canines

Gender determination is a fundamental issue in forensic anthropology. Many techniques based on bone and dental remains have been proposed. It is not always possible to implement the techniques using bones, but teeth are often perfectly preserved. It has been demonstrated that the canine has the greatest sexual dimorphism, and the aim of this work was to provide an easy and accurate dental technique for determining the gender in the absence of other skeletal elements. The sample was composed of 210 CT scans with four healthy canines. The 840 canines were modeled using MIMICS^® 10.01 software. The total volume of each tooth was determined. Seven mathematical models were determined by binary logistic regressions and ranked in order of relative performance. The seven proposed predictive models thus performed (0.910 ≤ AUC ≤ 0.938), with overall rates of correct predictions between 82.38 and 85.24%. The 4‐canine model is the most powerful for predicting the gender.