The purpose of this study was to determine whether a discrepancy existed between the premigration expectations and postmigration experiences of Hispanic immigrants with regard to their quality of life in the United States in communication, social, economic, and educational domains, and whether the discrepancy is correlated with acculturative stress. Acculturative stress refers to the stress that is related to the demands and pressure to adapt to a new culture. Indicators of acculturative stress include feelings of isolation due to inadequate social resources, apprehension at having to adapt to a new environment, angst over an inability to communicate in English, and worry over limited financial resources (Hovey, 1999). The current study analyzed data collected from a sample of 61 foreign-born individuals of Latin ancestry who came to the United States as an adult and have lived here for less than five (5) years. The findings indicate that violated expectations are correlated with acculturative stress more so than demographic variables, personality constructs and common sources of stress. Additionally, discrepancies between premigration expectations and postmigration experiences were found to be better predictors of acculturative stress than postmigration experiences alone.

Yes / In AD 1836, the General Register Office (GRO) was established to oversee the national system of civil registration in England and Wales, recording all births, deaths and marriages. Additional data regarding population size, division size and patterns of occupation within each division permit urban and rural areas (and those with both urban and rural characteristics, described here as ‘mixed’) to be directly compared to each other. The annual Reports of the Registrar General summarize the collected data, including cause of and age at death, which is of particular value to historical demographers and bioarcheologists, allowing us to investigate demographic patterns in urban and rural districts in the nineteenth century. Overall, this paper aims to highlight how this documentary evidence can supplement osteological and paleopathological data to investigate how urbanization affected the health of past populations. It examines the data contained within the first Registrar General report (for 1837-8), in order to assess patterns of mortality of diverse rural, urban, and mixed populations within England and Wales at a point in time during a period of rapid urbanization. It shows that urban and mixed districts typically had lower life expectancy and different patterns in cause of death compared to rural areas. The paper briefly compares how the documentary data differs from information regarding health from skeletal populations, focusing on the city of London, highlighting that certain age groups (the very young and very old) are typically underrepresented in archeological assemblages and reminding us that, while the paleopathological record offers much in terms of chronic health, evidence of acute disease and importantly cause of death can rarely be ascertained from skeletal remains. / This research was funded by the Royal Society of London (Grant Reference IES\R1\180138) and supported by the University of Bradford and SUNY Plattsburgh.

Essay 1 (with Juha Alho and Edward Palmer):  All around the world, public pension schemes are moving in the direction of non-financial (NDC) and financial defined contribution (DC) schemes.  Both rely on accurate projections of life expectancy in the creation of annuities. Accurate projections are critical for system stability, individual utility and inter-generational welfare. This paper suggests a path-breaking innovation that changes the perspective from the Lee-carter (LC) family of trend models which assume a constant rate of change in mortality over time. Our approach is to project the cohort life expectancy on basis of the specific cohort rate of change in mortality. This relaxes the strong trend assumption underlying the LC model, which is the reason why LC model does not work well in the phase of accelerating or decelerating mortality. We use unisex mortality data for $8$ countries to test the performance of our approach both ex-post and ex-ante. The ex-post experiment shows that our approach generally performs better when the rate of change in mortality is accelerating and performs as well as LC model when the rate of change is time-invariant. The ex-ante experiment, on the other hand, shows that our model almost always delivers higher projection of remaining life expectancy than the LC model for the more recent cohorts, which is consistent with the ex-post experimental results. / Essay 2:  Due to the systematic underestimation of cohort life expectancy, NDC pension schemes face a financial risk that can leads to inter-generational unfairness, given the current practice. This paper proposes an alternative method of computing annuity to address this problem. The proposal is to adjust the annuity based on re-estimations of the remaining life expectancy at intervals after retirement, but only up to a ceiling age. The scheme is assessed using 208 cohort annuity pools from eight sample countries. This experiment shows that the proposed scheme succeeds in reducing the inter-generational unfairness for 60-80% of the cohort annuity pools, compared to current practice of fixing the annuity at age 65. Because the adjustment is borne by the relatively large group of younger persons, the per capita change in utility is rather small assuming risk neutrality. / Essay 3:  This paper studies how the incentive to retire in a DC (NDC) scheme is influenced by engaging private information on life expectancy. This is an important question since the decisions made under the two scenarios, optimizing using the private life expectancy or the cohort average made available by the pension provider, create different welfare and financial outcomes. The analytical framework is a standard life-cycle model, accounting for monetary gain from work and non-monetary gain from leisure. The unique feature here is that the individual life expectancy is an explicit driver of disutility of work. The theoretical result is that prevailing private information of a longer-than-average life expectancy can lead to both advancing and delaying retirement, depending on other factors determining utility. The numerical example using Swedish data proves the theoretical results and suggests a rather small average impact on the choice of retirement by engaging private information of life expectancy. / Essay 4:   Pensions in the increasingly popular Notional Defined Contribution (NDC) Pay-as-You-Go Schemes are granted based on cohort-specific life expectancy, regardless socioeconomic differences. This risks perverse intra-generational and unintended inter-generational transfers. This paper introduces an alternative with separate annuity pools for different socioeconomic classes. Using unique Swedish data and the Swedish NDC pension system as an example, the analysis shows a significant gap in life expectancy between socioeconomic classes defined by occupation. In the Swedish context, this implies a perverse transfer of 5% of the pension capital from the manual workers to the non-manual workers, which can be abolished by using the group plan. In addition, the group plan also lessens the risk of inter-generational transfers resulting from the gap in life expectancy.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, banking executives feared the impact of increased capital reserve requirements for losses from mortgage defaults. One reason was that home price declines during the Great Recession precipitated mortgage defaults, which increased the percentage of foreclosures as well as accelerated negative equity, and default. The purpose of this correlational study, grounded in Fishbein's expectancy of value and Vroom's expectancy theories, was to examine the relationship between the independent variables of homeowner's equity, rental cash flow value, and recourse, and the dependent variable, default mortgage status. Archival data comprised a sample of 408 single family residences in Alameda County, California, and Shelby, Fayette, and Tipton Counties in Tennessee. The results of the binary logistic regression model indicated the model was a good fit to predict a significant relationship between the variables (Ï?2 = 3.490, p = 0.322, df = 3). The findings did not reveal a significant relationship between homeowner's equity, rental cash flow value, recourse, and default mortgage status. Therefore, the independent variables did not predict mortgage default status. However, a minor relationship was found between homeowner's equity (p = 0.215), rental cash flow value (p = 0.215), and default mortgage status. A non-significant relationship between the independent variables and default mortgage status indicated that factors other than the study variables influenced default mortgage status. Advocates for fair housing laws may use study findings to encourage lenders to change lending policies to reduce the risk of default and increase stability in local communities, which may result in potential positive social change.

With increasing merging of the Internet in our daily lives, online shopping becomes a new consumption model. The study subject was female customers who did shopping online. By means of performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence in terms of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as well as involvement degree, the study explored if those variations had influenced female customers¡¦ intentions and behaviors on online shopping. We issued 240 questionnaires by purposive sampling and analyzed by quantitative statistics. The result shows that performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence originating from UTAUT significantly influenced female customers¡¦ intentions. Moreover, their intentions also significantly influenced their behavior online.

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have been an essential part of the e-Learning ecosystem since the 1990s. LMSs have been developed and widely adopted by higher education institutions around the world. Despite the instructional and financial benefits of using LMSs, the adoption and diffusion of LMSs by faculty members continues to be challenging in higher education institutions, and particularly in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors influencing the adoption of learning management systems (LMSs) by faculty members in Saudi Arabian higher education. The study employed a mixed method approach and applied the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to explore these factors. Specifically, the study aims to determine the extent at which Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Facilitating Conditions (FC), and Social Norms (SN) influence faculty members' Behavioral Intention (BI) to adopt the Blackboard LMS. It also examines the moderating roles of age, gender, experience, perceived voluntariness, and computer self-efficacy on Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Norms (SN), and Facilitating Conditions (FC). The results of the study revealed a strong and positive correlation between performance expectancy and behavioral intention for Blackboard usage. The study also found Effort Expectancy, Facilitating Conditions, and Social Norms to be significant predictors of Behavioral Intention for Blackboard usage. Additionally, the findings show no moderation effects of age, gender, perceived voluntariness, and computer self-efficacy on Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Norms, and Facilitating Conditions. Experience was found to have a moderation effect on the relationship between Social Norms and Behavioral Intention. / Doctor of Philosophy / Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have been an essential part of the Electronic-Learning ecosystem since the 1990s. LMSs have been developed and widely adopted by higher education institutions around the world. Despite the instructional and financial benefits of using LMSs, the usage rate of LMSs by faculty members continues to be challenging in higher education institutions, and particularly in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors influencing the usage of learning management systems (LMSs) by faculty members in Saudi Arabian higher education. The study employed a mixed method approach and applied the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to explore these factors. Specifically, the study aims to determine the extent at which Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Facilitating Conditions (FC), and Social Norms (SN) influence faculty members' Behavioral Intention (BI) to adopt the Blackboard LMS. It also examines the moderating roles of age, gender, experience, perceived voluntariness, and computer self-efficacy on Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Norms (SN), and Facilitating Conditions (FC). The results of the study revealed a strong and positive correlation between performance expectancy and behavioral intention for Blackboard usage. The study also found Effort Expectancy, Facilitating Conditions, and Social Norms to be strong predictors of Behavioral Intention for Blackboard usage.

Regional Differences in Healthy Life Expectancy in Czechia Abstract Over the past decade, the health status of the population has also been measured by Healthy Life Expectancy indicator. This indicator covers not only the quantitative aspect, but it takes into the account also the qualitative aspect of prolonging human life. The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate the differences in healthy life expectancy among the regions of Czechia, both in terms of space and time (2009-2014). The introductory part of the thesis outlines the connections of the origin of the healthy life expectancy indicator and analyses the methods of its construction. The theoretical part of the thesis also includes description of sample surveys. To calculate healthy life years, the Sullivan method is used. Data on health status were obtained from the SILC survey. According to the results of the analysis, there is considerable variability between regions in terms of healthy life expectancy. The difference is significantly higher in terms of healthy life expectancy than in the case of life expectancy. A more detailed analysis of the distribution of the healthy life expectancy values has revealed that there is a certain "paradox" of healthy life expectancy in relation to life expectancy, since there are regions where the high...

<p>Vi ställde oss till en början frågan om arbetsledare och anställda har liknande uppfattning gällande arbetsmotivation. Med hjälp av befintliga teorier som vi ansåg som lämpliga ville vi beskriva och utvärdera hur arbetsmotivationen förhåller sig i ett större tillverkande företag samt att undersöka vilka likheter och skillnader som finns mellan arbetsledarens uppfattning och den upplevda situationen hos de anställda.</p><p>För att ett företag som verkar på en konkurrerande marknad skall kunna överleva och bli framgångsrikt så är produktivitet och effektiv produktion en avgörande faktor. Man måste få de anställda att vilja prestera sitt bästa och motivera dem till att göra detta varje dag. Många företagare brukar ofta påstå att företagets största resurs är dess anställda. Det är svårt att hävda motsatsen då det är dessa människor som i grund och botten utför arbetet på många företag.</p><p>Vi har valt att undersöka arbetsmotivationen på det tillverkande företaget Atlas Copco i Örebro som nyligen flyttat hit tillverkningen av vissa delar av produktionen från olika delar av världen. Detta har inneburit nyanställningar och därmed ett större antal anställda. Atlas Copco i Örebro ansågs därför som ett lämpligt företag att exemplifiera denna problematik på.</p><p>Uppsatsens frågeställningar handlar om vad företagets arbetsledare har för insikt i arbetsmotivationen bland de anställda samt att påvisa likheter och skillnader mellan arbetsledarens uppfattning och de anställdas uppfattning.</p><p>För att samla in våra data valde vi att använda både en enkätundersökning och en djupintervju, således blev data insamlat av både det kvalitativa och det kvantitativa slaget. Totalt så delades 31 stycken svarsenkäter ut och lika många returnerades.</p><p>De delar som utgör den teoretiska referensramen i undersökningen är Expectancy Theory, Hertzbergs tvåfaktorsteori. Detta beskrivs i uppsatsen dels ur arbetsledarens perspektiv och dels ur de anställdas synvinkel.</p><p>Den empiriska delen av uppsatsen består av information från den intervjun som gjorts med arbetsledaren samt information hämtad från enkäter besvarade av de anställda och Atlas Copcos hemsida. De erfarenheter som inhämtats jämfördes sedan med teorin och skillnader och likheter sammanställdes i analysavsnittet.</p><p>Det vi kom fram till genom att göra denna undersökning var att arbetsledaren har bra insikt i de anställdas arbetsmotivation och likheterna i de motiverande faktorerna klart översteg skillnaderna. Vi kom dock fram till några få punkter vi anser vara bristfälliga vilket arbetsledningen bör tänka över. Dessa punkter var att de anställda inte känner att de får någon verklig belöning vid extra bra prestationer samt att förbättra feedbacken till de anställda både i positiv och negativ riktning.</p>

Vi ställde oss till en början frågan om arbetsledare och anställda har liknande uppfattning gällande arbetsmotivation. Med hjälp av befintliga teorier som vi ansåg som lämpliga ville vi beskriva och utvärdera hur arbetsmotivationen förhåller sig i ett större tillverkande företag samt att undersöka vilka likheter och skillnader som finns mellan arbetsledarens uppfattning och den upplevda situationen hos de anställda. För att ett företag som verkar på en konkurrerande marknad skall kunna överleva och bli framgångsrikt så är produktivitet och effektiv produktion en avgörande faktor. Man måste få de anställda att vilja prestera sitt bästa och motivera dem till att göra detta varje dag. Många företagare brukar ofta påstå att företagets största resurs är dess anställda. Det är svårt att hävda motsatsen då det är dessa människor som i grund och botten utför arbetet på många företag. Vi har valt att undersöka arbetsmotivationen på det tillverkande företaget Atlas Copco i Örebro som nyligen flyttat hit tillverkningen av vissa delar av produktionen från olika delar av världen. Detta har inneburit nyanställningar och därmed ett större antal anställda. Atlas Copco i Örebro ansågs därför som ett lämpligt företag att exemplifiera denna problematik på. Uppsatsens frågeställningar handlar om vad företagets arbetsledare har för insikt i arbetsmotivationen bland de anställda samt att påvisa likheter och skillnader mellan arbetsledarens uppfattning och de anställdas uppfattning. För att samla in våra data valde vi att använda både en enkätundersökning och en djupintervju, således blev data insamlat av både det kvalitativa och det kvantitativa slaget. Totalt så delades 31 stycken svarsenkäter ut och lika många returnerades. De delar som utgör den teoretiska referensramen i undersökningen är Expectancy Theory, Hertzbergs tvåfaktorsteori. Detta beskrivs i uppsatsen dels ur arbetsledarens perspektiv och dels ur de anställdas synvinkel. Den empiriska delen av uppsatsen består av information från den intervjun som gjorts med arbetsledaren samt information hämtad från enkäter besvarade av de anställda och Atlas Copcos hemsida. De erfarenheter som inhämtats jämfördes sedan med teorin och skillnader och likheter sammanställdes i analysavsnittet. Det vi kom fram till genom att göra denna undersökning var att arbetsledaren har bra insikt i de anställdas arbetsmotivation och likheterna i de motiverande faktorerna klart översteg skillnaderna. Vi kom dock fram till några få punkter vi anser vara bristfälliga vilket arbetsledningen bör tänka över. Dessa punkter var att de anställda inte känner att de får någon verklig belöning vid extra bra prestationer samt att förbättra feedbacken till de anställda både i positiv och negativ riktning.

人口預期壽命的變化一直以來皆被視為是人類發展與進步的指標之一，其成長更為人們所樂見。當人類預期壽命普遍成長且達一定壽命水準時，兩性存活年數的差距仍為一常見的現象。假設社會的發展與變遷對同一社會中的兩性人口造成相異的衝擊，此種差異性會進一步透過兩者間壽命差距的狀況加以反映時，在追求兩性平等與均衡發展此社會目標之驅動下，對兩性壽命水準差距狀況的瞭解乃為提升兩性存活狀況、創造均衡之兩性社會並進而採取相關策略前重要的一步。 本研究利用內政府統計處所編列之台灣地區簡易生命表做為主要的分析資料，從透過對台灣地區兩性壽命差距於國民政府遷台後之1950起至2004年此55年間變化之關注做為出發點，發現兩性壽命於55年間其增長變化上雖然呈現相似的變動狀態，然而女性於各時期內優於男性之成長幅度則是造成日趨擴大之兩性壽命差距之由來。又兩性出生時平均餘命其變動上所呈現的階段性則與兩性壽命差距水準變化上所出現的四階段有其關聯性。此外，兩性於各年齡別平均餘命之增長，大致來說，主要發生在10-60歲組中，70歲以後之較高年齡組中，兩性存活餘命的成長則較不顯著，且兩性餘命差距隨著年齡別的增加而減少。兩性於各年齡別上餘命之差距，在研究觀察的55年間呈現穩定，只是，1960年以前兩性出生時平均餘命與其他較高年齡組上之平均餘命間呈現較為特殊的型態，此乃說明造成兩性壽命差距之年齡別死亡率有異。 本研究將Arriaga(1984)所提，用以分解兩相異之平均餘命，而以不同年齡別中兩性死亡率差異分別對兩性預期壽命差距所作之貢獻加以表示時，發現，兩性在40-79歲間死亡率的差異是造成兩性壽命差距最主要的貢獻年齡別，其中以60-69歲組為最。此外，面對0-9歲組中兩性死亡率差異狀況對該時期兩性預期壽命差距之貢獻型態於1960年前後所呈現之相異性時，一方面有對該時期兩性死亡率之資料加以檢定之必要性外，其所可能象徵之女性生存狀況受其地位改善之影響，抑或為男性存活狀況變化等推測的驗證雖不在本研究所觸及之範圍內，然而透過本研究分析結果中所掌握造成兩性壽命差距之年齡組別，則有助於日後在企圖釐清造成兩性壽命差距之因以進一步改善兩性存活狀況時一切入點。 / Life Expectancy of human beings, one of the indices of human development, has been generally growing since the beginning of the 20th century and the increase in the life span of human is also taken as the result of the improved medical techniques and social conditions. In the face of the growth in life expectancy at birth both of the male and female populations in Taiwan during the past 55 years, 1950-2004, the gender differential of life expectancy at birth or at any other specific age still exited and even got expanding. The difference in life expectancy at birth between the male and the female was 2.64 years and in the year of 2004, it came to be 6.24 years. Suppose the growth of human life expectancy at birth or at any specific age in both female and male populations implies that social changes and developments brought positive impacts not only on the female but also on the male during the observation period of 55 years. Obviously, the existing and expanding gender differences in life expectancy somewhat indicates that the impact of the social changes and developments on the male and the female weren’t comparable in qualities. The main concern of this article is about the change of the differences in life expectancy at birth between the male and the female in Taiwan during the past 55 years, 1950-2004. Dismissing the discussion and investigation of the practical and real causes of the gender difference in life expectancy, the researcher intended to give the reason to the expanding gender difference in life expectancy by comparing the way male and female life expectancies evolved. In addition, adopting the decomposition method developed by Arriaga(1984) originally for decomposition of changes in expectation of life at birth, the researcher was using this method to decompose the gender differential in life expectancy at birth and evaluated the contribution of the gender differential in mortality within each specific age group to the ultimate differential in life expectancy at birth between the male and the female each year during the observation period and the shifts in the significance of these age groups in the past 55 years. In this article, the researcher separated a person’s life into several age groups,0-9,10-19,20-29,30-39,40-49,50-59,60-69,70-79 and 80 above, to symbolize the different stage of a person’s life. The male and the female experienced similar pattern in the changes of life expectancy. However, the improvement of female life expectancy was greater than that of the male’s in any specific period of the past 55 years , which caused the increasing difference in life expectancy between the male and female in Taiwan. The higher the age is, the less the gender difference in life expectancy at that specific age is. As the male is able to live long enough to a higher age, they are more likely to overcome the survival predominance of the female and the gender difference in life expectancy at a specific age would diminish. In addition, as for the contributions made by each specific age group, during the observation period of 55 years, gender differential life expectancy at birth had been coming from the gender differential in death rates within 40 to 80 years old. The contribution made by the age group of 60-69 made had been the most significant one. Mostly, the living ability of the female was much more superior to that of the male at any specific age even if the significance, each age groups held, somewhat had been shifting during the 55 years. Noticeably, the type of the contribution, age group of 0-9 made, was very different after 1960. Before 1960, men demonstrated a better survival ability than women did within this age group; however, after 1960, the superiority of men came into disappearance. As for the change of the contribution this age group of 0-9 made, we need to have more information and data to gain the further ideas it might bring about.