Patterns of Middle School Adjustment and Ninth Grade Adaptation of Rural African American Youth: Grades and Substance Use

The transition to high school has been identified as a potentially difficult time in adolescents’ lives. Reductions in both academic and social functioning often accompany this transition. While these effects have been documented in urban youth, the move to high school has not been extensively studied in rural minority youth. Toward that end, the academic grades and substance use in ninth grade of 447 (184 male and 263 female) African-American adolescents from two rural counties in a state in the deep South were examined in relation to configurations of adaptation from sixth through eighth grade. Results indicate that individual with consistently positive patterns across middle school had higher grades and lower rates of substance use compared to individuals with persistent difficulties or those that transitioned to problem behavior. Many individuals who improved in their patterns of adaptation had relatively high grades, but also rather high rates of substance use in the ninth grade. David B. Estell is an assistant professor of educational psychology at Indiana University Bloomington. He received his PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major research interests include peer relations and the development of aggression. Thomas W. Farmer is an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University and director of the National Research Center on Rural Education Support. He received his PhD in Special Education from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major research interests include peer relations and the development of aggression in students with and without special needs. Matthew J. Irvin is a research scientist at the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His major research interests include resilience and student engagement. Jana H. Thompson is a research associate at the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include peer social relations and developmental transitions into early adolescence. Bryan C. Hutchins is a research assistant at the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a graduate student in the Educational Psychology, Measurement, and Evaluation Program at UNC. His research interests include child and adolescent social development and school based emotional and behavioral interventions and prevention programs. Erin M. McDonough is currently a doctoral candidate in School Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Emory University. As a research assistant at the Center for Developmental Science, she has been able to explore her interests in student achievement as well as rural education. Another major research interest of hers is school-based mental health.     

我国行业利益集团对规制政策制定过程的影响

规制政策本质上具有对公民和企业的权利进行分配或再分配的特点,中国国际快递委员会通过重点运用游说策略,综合利用智库、媒体等渠道,对快递业的规制政策制定施加了影响,有力地抵制了国家邮政局和邮政企业“政企同盟”的政策意图。因此,如何在今后的利益集团博弈中构筑一个各方充分参与的制度性平台,将成为今后政治体制改革的重要课题。     

How Does Outward FDI Influence the Structural Decompositions of TFP of Equipment Manufacturing Enterprises？——Analysis Based on the Differential Path

Three sub-sections of TFP are divided as technological process, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency, which are also regarded as the differential path of promoting the equipment manufacturing industry’s TFP. Based on the differential path, the mechanism analysis between outward FDI and China’s equipment manufacturing industry is constructed. With the data of public-listed companies, PSM is used to verify the hypothesis proposed in this paper and then to test the mechanism of the six categories of equipment manufacturing industry. The results show that outward FDI of public-listed companies in equipment manufacturing industry significantly promotes the pure technical efficiency, but has a significant negative effect on the scale efficiency. What’s more, the positive effect decreases year by year, while the negative effect gradually weakens. Subsample data shows that for the pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency, the significantly positive effects come from transportation equipment manufacturing industry and computer communication and other equipment manufacturing industry.     

Coal and nuclear technologies: creating a false dichotomy for American energy policy

The American electric utility industry is entering a moment of transition. Once viewed as a stable and secure consortium of publicly regulated monopolies that produce and distribute electricity, the industry has weathered market restructuring only to face the ever-present risk of natural disasters, price fluctuations, terrorist attacks, and blackouts. This paper uses five criteria—technical feasibility, cost, negative externalities, reliability, and security—to evaluate the broad portfolio of energy technologies available to American electricity policymakers. Upon close inspection, energy efficiency practices, renewable energy systems, and small-scale distributed generation technologies appear to offer many advantages over large and centralized nuclear and fossil fueled generators. Contrary to the mimetic commentary produced by the media, these three approaches would present policymakers a superior alternative for curbing electricity demand, minimizing the risk of fuel interruptions and shortages, helping improve the fragile transmission network, and reducing environmental harm     

信息化时代世界装备制造业的软化趋势

20世纪中期以来，以信息技术革命为核心的新技术革命的兴起，催生了知识经济时代，引起了世界新的产业革命，加快了世界范围内产业结构的全方位变革。伴随着信息化时代的来临，世界装备制造业的发展也呈现出有别于工业经济时代的新趋势——软化趋势。世界装备制造业软化趋势为我国加快装备制造业发展，提升产业国际竞争力提供了宝贵的经验与启示。     

The Development of Competitive Industries: The Role of State Government Actors

Despite widespread adoption of Porter's Industrial Cluster Theory as a policy development framework by federal and state governments over the past decade, Australia remains significantly below the OECD average in terms of its industries' economic contributions to real wealth creation ( Brown 2000 ; OECD 1998 ). The major cause cited for this relatively poor performance has been inability of key government officials to implement effective industry policy that simultaneously avoids de facto protectionism and distortion of competition. This article provides an insight into the key policy decisions undertaken by the Tasmanian state government that coincided with development of an internationally successful shipbuilding industry in that state. As such, this article provides a reflection on policy initiatives that may be valuable for government officials elsewhere.     

Factors in successful program implementation in Russia during the transition: pilot programs as a guide

While much of the implementation literature over the past several decades has recognised the importance of context (e.g. in issues of institutional culture, degree of hierarchy), little of the literature comparing the results of numerous program implementation experiences examines the experience of non‐Western contexts. This study seeks to partially fill this gap by applying the ‘conventional wisdom’ of implementation theory to program implementation experience in Russia. We analyse the implementation of 18 demonstration projects in Russia against 9 success factors identified in the implementation literature. Most of the pilots involved multiple cities; so there are a total of 48 city‐case observations to study. Overall, the findings are that the factors associated with successful program implementation among OECD countries are also those at work in Russia's transitional economy. The weights associated with the various factors may differ, however. One could imagine, for example, that political support counts for more in Russia than in the western local governments. One might also believe that opportunities for learning from other implementers could be more important in the West, where professional associations are more highly developed. The core finding of consistency should be valuable to administrators across transitional economies who can now refer to the rich findings of implementation research with greater confidence of its applicability to their programs. Perhaps equally important is the finding that some of the same factors predominantly associated with successful or troubled implementation in Russia have similar effects in implementation examples drawn from transition and developing nations; there are, however, some important differences. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

从公共行政人员角色变迁看行政伦理

在转型期 ,公共行政人员的道德缺失显得不可避免 ,尽管有各种解决方案 ,但行政伦理仍然不可或缺。但对“公仆”的传统定位无助于形成合理的对行政伦理的理解。引入当前政府治道变革中的“顾客导向”使得公仆的定位回归到应有的位置 ,在这个维度行政伦理同样重要 ,且有助于实现公众期望与公共行政人员行为的契合。在此基础上 ,行政伦理制度化刻不容缓     

转型期中俄贫困问题比较及反贫困意义的共性分析

中俄两国曾是世界上最大的两个社会主义国家 ,转型期都经历了此前不曾遇到的各种复杂问题。尽管两国选择的转型模式不同 ,转型期经济发展速度也存在着明显差异 ,但目前两国却共同面临着贫困问题。在绝对贫困与相对贫困、贫困数量与贫困发生率、贫困的地域分布以及基尼系数等问题上 ,中俄两国具有明显的对比空间。反贫困是中俄两国转型期的共同选择。它对于维护两国的政治秩序、保障经济持续发展、提高“生活质量”的目标原则具有十分重要的现实意义。     

Social Support: A Mediator between Child Maltreatment and Developmental Outcomes

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relationship between child maltreatment, social support, and developmental outcomes in first-year college students. Participants were 202 undergraduate students (137 female, 65 male) who completed surveys at two time points: once before entering college and once during their first year of college. It was hypothesized that child maltreatment would predict poorer developmental outcomes in adolescence and early adulthood, but that social support would mediate this relationship. Results indicated that child maltreatment related negatively to developmental outcomes and to perceived social support; adolescent and young adult development related positively to perceived social support. In addition, a mediational model in which social support mediates child maltreatment and developmental outcomes was supported.