Negotiating Density and Financing Public Goods in Vancouver and New Taipei City: A Development Rights Perspective

ABSTRACT

This article examines two density-based value-capture mechanisms – community amenity contributions (CAC) in Vancouver, Canada, and transfer of development rights (TDR) in New Taipei City, Taiwan – that planners use to finance public goods. To understand the differences in the design of the mechanisms, negotiating dynamics, actors involved, and types of public goods financed, we propose three perspectives on development rights: absolute ownership, bundle of rights, and public asset. We find that the public asset perspective underpins Vancouver’s CAC, whereas in New Taipei City’s TDR development rights are treated more as a commodity, a concept rooted in the absolute ownership perspective.     

An EWMA chart for monitoring process mean

In the statistical process control literature, there exists several improved quality control charts based on cost-effective sampling schemes, including the ranked set sampling (RSS) and median RSS (MRSS). A generalized cost-effective RSS scheme has been recently introduced for efficiently estimating the population mean, namely varied L RSS (VLRSS). In this article, we propose a new exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart for monitoring the process mean using VLRSS, named the EWMA-VLRSS chart, under both perfect and imperfect rankings. The EWMA-VLRSS chart encompasses the existing EWMA charts based on RSS and MRSS (named the EWMA-RSS and EWMA-MRSS charts). We use extensive Monte Carlo simulations to compute the run length characteristics of the EWMA-VLRSS chart. The proposed chart is then compared with the existing EWMA charts. It is found that, with either perfect or imperfect rankings, the EWMA-VLRSS chart is more sensitive than the EWMA-RSS and EWMA-MRSS charts in detecting small to large shifts in the process mean. A real dataset is also used to explain the working of the EWMA-VLRSS chart.     

Effect of tuberculosis on immune restoration among HIV-infected patients receiving antiretroviral therapy

In this article, time to immune recovery during antiretroviral therapy was estimated and compared between HIV-infected children with and without tuberculosis (TB). CD4?T-cell restoration was used as a criterion for determining immune recovery. The median residual lifetime function, which is more intuitive and robust compared to the frequently used measures of lifetime data, was used to estimate time to CD4?T-cell restoration. The median residual lifetime is not influenced by extreme observations and heavy-tailed distributions which are commonly encountered in clinical studies. Permutation-based methods were used to compare the CD4?T-cell restoration times between the two groups of patients. Our results indicate that children with TB had uniformly higher median residual lifetimes to immune recovery compared to those without TB. Although TB was associated with slower CD4?T-cell restoration, the differences between the restoration times of the two groups were not statistically significant.     

Controlling the illusion of control: a grounded theory of sports betting advertising in the UK

Sports betting advertising has arguably permeated contemporary sport consumption in many countries. Advertisements build narratives that represent situations and characters that normalize betting behaviour and raise public concerns regarding their detrimental effect on vulnerable groups. Adopting a grounded theory approach, the present study examined a British sample of sports betting advertisements (N = 102) from 2014 to 2016. The analysis revealed that individual themes aligned in a single core narrative, constructing a dual persuasive strategy of sports betting advertising: (i) to reduce the perceived risk involved in betting (with themes such as betting with friends, free money offers, humour, or the use of celebrities) while (ii) enhancing the perceived control of bettors (including themes of masculinity and sport knowledge). In addition, new technological features of sports betting platforms (e.g. live in-play betting) were used by advertisers to build narratives in which the ability to predict a sports outcome was overlapped by the ability of bettors to use such platforms, equalizing the ease of betting with the ease of winning. Based on the data analysed, it was concluded that the construction of a magnified idea of control in sports betting advertising is a cause for concern that requires close regulatory scrutiny.     

电子商务平台吸附能力的影响机制研究———平台柔性和控制机制的交互效应

平台型电子商务已经成为未来经济发展的主要推动力,如何构建并应用这种平台商务模式已经成为企业管理者普遍关心的问题.然而现有文献对电子商务平台的研究还比较少,主要基于平台主体的案例研究,缺乏从平台商家角度对如何形成电子商务平台的吸附力并激发网络效应的实证检验.基于模块系统理论和控制机制的相关文献,提出了平台柔性、平台控制、以及二者交互作用对平台吸附能力的影响模型.通过对185家平台参与企业的实证研究,研究结果显示平台柔性、正式控制、和关系控制均显著影响电子商务平台吸附能力;另外,平台柔性和正式控制对电子商务平台吸附能力的形成存在替代效应,平台柔性和关系控制对电子商务平台吸附能力的形成存在互补效应,正式控制和关系控制对电子商务平台吸附能力也存在互补效应.研究发现,对于模块系统理论和控制机制的应用情景进行了扩展和延伸,也为电子商务平台的管理者提供了有益的建议.     

有限责任公司涉章决议中的股权保护——基于对公司法人理论的思考

伴随《中华人民共和国民法总则》以及《最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国公司法〉若干问题的规定（四）》的施行，公司章程在公司法人治理中的地位进一步得到提升。但现代性条件下股东、公司法人以及外部社会之间的张力尚存，且现有法人理论不足以支撑公司尤其是有限责任公司的治理实践。为更好地规范涉章决议以避免其侵害股东权益，仍需进一步发掘我国公司法人理论。从股东在有限责任公司法人共同体中的特殊性权利义务出发，在公司法人差异化，章程、股东权类型化的前提下实现股东合法利益的最大化。     

民汉双语诉讼规则之探索

我国宪法赋予了公民用自己的民族语言文字参加诉讼的权利，目的在于实现民族平等、促进民族团结、禁止民族分裂、保护中华民族语言文化的多样性，进而提高我国的文化软实力。通过调查民族语言文字诉讼司法实务，发现当前存在着少数民族语言文字诉讼程序混乱、不符合诉讼原理等问题，不利于民族语言文字诉讼权利的实现。究其原因，在于该诉讼制度缺乏程序保障。为了确保民族语言文字诉讼权利的有效实现，应设立“民汉双语诉讼规则”，以为司法机关提供统一的操作规范。民汉双语诉讼规则应该明确民汉双语诉讼的概念、类型以及民族语言文字诉讼权利的内容，并且根据不同诉讼类型有针对性地设置审判语言与诉讼语言的适用规则。     

学前儿童基于重量和声音进行因果推理的发展研究

儿童的推理能力历来都是考察儿童认知发展的重点。本研究探讨了在多种属性刺激下3~5岁儿童基于重量和声音进行 因果推理的表现。结果发现：4岁和5岁儿童选择正确目标物的准确率显著高于3岁儿童；和同时使用声音与重量判断目标物相 比，儿童在单独使用重量或声音的情况下更容易区分目标物。总之，儿童因果推理能力发展的关键期在4岁并且当任务难度较高 的情况下其因果机制极易受到干扰。     

The paradox of illicit economies: survival,resilience, and the limits of development and drug policy orthodoxy

ABSTRACT

The illicit drug crops opium and coca are conventionally regarded as sources of instability, an ‘evil’ that breeds fragility and violence. Fragile states are supposed to be most vulnerable to their production and consequent harms. Yet by looking into the local contexts of the world’s leading opium and coca producers – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Colombia and Bolivia – these illicit crops are found to also be sources of stability, even drivers of economic growth. They enable marginalized communities and territories abandoned by the state to be reinserted into national and global markets. Within so-called ‘fragile’ and conflict-affected areas are displaced and dispossessed households adopting innovative and unorthodox strategies for coping and survival in changing and insecure environments. This paper maps out an approach, useful for examining the resilience that has emerged amidst violence and uncertainty in illicit-crop-producing territories, and which can hopefully tackle the continuing disconnect between drugs and development policy.