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This article investigates how the political culture of Guan (care/control) in China is played out across the platforms of the state, the community and the family through the lens of caring for people with severe mental illness in urban Shanghai. Based on ethnographic data collected from six communities in a district of Shanghai, we provide a nuanced understanding of the roles of family members, street committees and other governmental organizations in their daily practices of caring for people with severe mental illness. We show the complicated and intertwined relationships between local governmental agents and the family. We argue that the political culture of Guan, which permeates the everyday life of Chinese people, tends to objectify its subjects and reflects a long history of patriarchy in Chinese society. Without further changing such political cultural arrangements, respect for the agency of mentally ill patients, the effort of bringing humanistic psychiatric reforms to China, will be in vain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Penelope obscura Temminck, 1815 is a forest guan found in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Bolivia. Three subspecies are currently recognized: Penelope o. obscura Temminck, 1815, P. o. bridgesi Gray, 1860, and P. o. bronzina Hellmayr, 1914. The limits between Penelope taxa are poorly understood since few studies have evaluated their differences in plumage, distribution and taxonomy. Based on 104 specimens deposited in ornithological collections we studied the variations in the plumage of P. obscura, including all characters that have been used to describe the included subspecies. Our results show that the plumage of these birds is extremely variable in southern and southeastern Brazil. Without any morphological and morphometric characters to support P. o. bronzina as a valid taxon, we synonymized it with P. obscura. Conversely, P. o. bridgesi, which occurs in the Yungas and the Chaco, is a distinct taxon and should be treated as a separate species from P. obscura. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through interviews with 22 middle-class mothers and their adolescent children, we explored contemporary approaches to parenting in urban China. The participants provided evidence of authoritative parenting style. We also examined the applicability of Chao’s construct of Chinese parenting guan (管) for adolescence; the participants seemed to support the idea, but viewed the underlying meaning of guan differently than described in earlier studies conducted with mothers of younger children. We thus argue that guanjiao (管教), which means “to govern and to educate/teach,” may be a more appropriate word to use than guan to describe urban, middle-class Chinese mothers’ approach to parenting of adolescents. The findings also suggest that neither Chao’s construct of guan nor Baumrind’s prototypes could fully capture its essence. Additional elements, such as modeling, self-sacrifice, and expression of affection through behavior, also emerged as common themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the first nest of Black-and-chestnut Eagle (Spizaetus isidori) discovered in Argentina, showing potential conflicts between human and predator. Topics include observing the nest to monitor the success of diet and breeding, various prey items, like Dusky-legged Guan (Penelope obscura) or Red-faced Guan (P. dabbenei) birds, and the predation by the Black-and-chestnut Eagle.

The importance of parenting styles on children's outcomes, including cognitive, social, academic, and values makes this topic a central concern to social researchers and psychologists. However, past research has reported controversial evidence on the relationship between authoritarian parenting and children's outcomes in non-Western cultural contexts. This raises awareness on the implication of cultural differences in parenting styles. As a result, the training parenting style scale (TPSS) was proposed based on the Confucian concept of 'Guan' and 'Chiao Shu.' This scale is allegedly more reflective of the Asian parenting style. The present study examined the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the Malay version of the TPSS across adolescents' perceived maternal and paternal training and by adolescent gender. Of the 8 items in the original TPSS, confirmatory factor analysis supported 6-item scale with error correlations was the best-fitting model. Internal consistency was also good for the 6-item scale. Furthermore, support for configural, metric, scalar, residual, and structural invariance emerged across adolescents' perceived maternal and paternal training and across adolescent gender. Results of this study supported the psychometric properties of the 6-item TPSS after taking into account several cautiously considered limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that reactive and proactive aggression may be differentially related to family contextual (e.g. parenting practices) factors. However, the existing research has focused largely on children and adolescents from Western countries, and no study has examined the parenting--aggression association using a parenting style measure sensitive to Asian culture. In this study parenting styles (i.e. warmth, control and guan/training) and proactive and reactive aggression were assessed in a large sample of school children in Hong Kong, China (N = 4,175, mean age = 11.75). We found that: (a) both low warmth (in boys only) and guan (i.e. high expectation and close supervision, in both boys and girls) were associated with elevated parent-reported proactive aggression, (b) high restrictive control (i.e. dominating and rejecting) was associated with high reactive aggression (in both boys and girls) based on parent- or child-report data, and with high proactive aggression (in boys only) based on parent-report data, and (c) guan was also positively associated with parent-reported reactive aggression. Findings provide more information about the Parenting Inventory using a large Asian sample, and extend existing research on familial correlates of different types of aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-destructive EDXRF analysis has been carried out to measure the body compositions of 32 pieces of 'original' Song Guan ware and 14 pieces of Guan-type ware of Ming and Qing imitation from the Palace Museum collection. The purpose of this study is to test the conclusions of our previous provenance study based on EDXRF analysis of glaze composition of the same samples. In agreement with the grouping derived from the glaze composition, our new data show the following. (1) Samples G1, G3, G29 and G39 are also reclassified into Ming and Qing imitations, and samples M41 and Q54 are reclassified into authentic Song Guan wares. (2) A set of seven dishes of 'original' Guan ware is reconfirmed as being made in the north of China by comparison with Ru shards from the Qingliangsi and Zhanggongxiang kilns in Ruzhou city. (3) In addition, this study suggests that three wares of 'Original' Song Guan wares (G26, G27 and G30) should be attributed to Longquan black-body celadon. (4) The compositions of the Palace Museum Guan wares are compared with those of the shards from two Hangzhou Guan ware kiln sites. However, more work has to be done to trace the provenance of the 'authentic' Song Guan wares from the Palace Museum collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sixty-four parents of Chinese gifted children who reported themselves to be traditional or Westernized parents were compared on their endorsement of Chinese traditional and Western parenting values and beliefs as well as their parenting style dimensions in terms of dominating control,guan, and warmth. Regardless of their degrees of Westernization, these parents seemed to be more characterized by collectivistic than individualistic thinking approaches based on Nisbett's conceptualization. More Westernized parents valued nonconformity significantly more than conformity, whereas less-Westernized parents placed more emphasis on the importance of unconditional respect for elders and interdependence than on conditional respect and child independence. Regarding parenting styles and practices, though all parents endorsed the practice of warmth significantly more, followed byguan, and significantly less dominating control, there was suggestive evidence that less-Westernized parents practicedguanmore than more-Westernized parents. Implications of the findings for parenting gifted children are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated relations between parental beliefs and mothers' reported responses to their children's negative emotions. Altogether 189 Chinese mothers of children aged six to eight years were interviewed in group sessions using structured questionnaires. It was found that Chinese mothers endorsed Guan, the Chinese parental beliefs. They also believed that children should be exposed to emotional experiences in order to learn about emotion but did not believe that parents should take an inactive role in their children's emotion learning. Regression analyses revealed that Guan predicted the adoption of the coaching, emotion-supportive and emotion-dismissing approaches when handling children's emotion. Maternal belief in children's open exposure to emotional experiences predicted the adoption of the coaching and emotion-supportive approaches but not the emotion-dismissing approach. Maternal belief in inactive parental role in children's emotion learning predicted the adoption of the emotion-dismissing approach but not the coaching approach. Implications for parent education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among parental goals, parental beliefs and parenting styles. Questionnaires were completed during interviews with 189 Hong Kong-Chinese mothers of children aged six to eight years. Results indicated that these mothers embraced Chinese parental beliefs (guan) and Chinese parental goals of filial piety and harmonious social relationships. In contrast to other studies on Chinese parenting, this study examined Chinese mothers' adoption of psychological control in addition to authoritarian and authoritative parenting. Participants' main styles were found to be authoritative and psychologically controlling rather than authoritarian as reported in previous research. Parental goals were found to mediate the effect of parental beliefs on adoption of parenting styles. Mothers who embraced guan and filial piety reported either an authoritarian or a psychologically controlling parenting style, while those who embraced guan and harmonious social relationships adopted an authoritative parenting style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of global climate observing system upper air network (GUAN). GUAN offers a network of high quality radiosonde stations with enough historical data records and commitment to future observing in support of the demands of the climate research community. It offers sufficient coverage for supervising global, tropical and hemispheric mean climate. It is stated that an evaluation of the spatial sampling requirements for such to monitor large-scale climate changes has been carried.

We present a detailed look at local ecological knowledge (LEK) of the Aguaruna-Jívaro on plants foraged by frugivorous tropical birds. When asked how a particular plant is useful to people, Aguaruna men often mentioned whether the plant in question was eaten by birds or other animals. The Aguaruna use their knowledge about what plants particular birds eat to help them locate species when hunting. We focus on indigenous knowledge of the diet of five mainly frugivorous bird families that are of local economic importance: Cracidae (guans, chachalacas and curassows), Pipridae (manakins), Psittacidae (parrots), Ramphastidae (toucans) and Steatornithidae (Oilbird). Fieldwork took place in communities along tributaries of the upper Marañón river in the Peruvian Amazon from 2003 to 2005. Results indicate a high correspondence between western science and Aguaruna LEK. This research contributes to the larger goal of promoting dialog between indigenous and scientific systems of knowledge in the context of future conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]