院校协作式校本课程开发与教师专业化——以香港小学常识科科学探究课为例

上世纪90年代以来,香港一直致力于教学改善.教学改善以学生的发展为终极目标,这对教师工作的专业化提出了更高的要求.教师唯有主动地在教育实践中产生一定的有创新意义的活动,才能更好地把握教育变革的脉搏.伙伴合作式校本课程开发的主旨在于通过大学研究员与教师合作,双方共同经历思考一行动一反思的过程,以促进教师专业自主性的方式优化教学.     

The empirical analysis of the -bilateral optimized combinatorial auction model

This study proposes a new and highly efficient dynamic combinatorial auction mechanism—the N-bilateral optimized combinatorial auction (N-BOCA). N-BOCA is a flexible iterative combinatorial auction model that offers more optimized trading for multiple suppliers and purchasers in the supply chain than one-sided combinatorial auction. We design the N-BOCA model from the perspectives of market architecture, trading rules, and decision strategy for winner determination, the decision strategy for winner determination needs flexible optimization modeling capability. Thus rule-based reasoning was applied for reflecting the flexible decision strategies. We also show the viability of N-BOCA through Paired Samples T-test experimentation. It shows that N-BOCA yields higher purchase efficiency and effectiveness than the one-auctioneer to multi-bidders (1-to-N) combinatorial auction mechanism.     

Book reviews/Comptes rendus

Lisa Gilad, Ginger and Salt: Yemeni Jewish Women in an Israeli Town. Boulder D.W. Attwood and B.S. Baviskar (eds.), Who Shares? Co-operatives and Rural Development Francis Robinson (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and The Maldives Richard C. Davis (ed.), Rupert's Land: A Cultural Tapestry Tom Bottomore and Robert J. Brym (eds.), The Capitalist Class: An International Study Raymond Murphy, Social Closure: A theory of Monopolization and Exclusion Richard Flacks, Making History. Kevin D. Carriere and Richard V. Ericson, Crime Stoppers: A Study in the Organization of Community Policing. Dany Lacombe, Ideology and Public Policy: The Case Against Pornography Robert J. Brym with Bonnie J. Fox, From Culture to Power: The Sociology of English Canada. Barry Wellman and S.D. Berkowitz (eds.), Social Structures: a network approach John Van Willigen, Barbara Rylko-Bauer, and Ann Mcelroy (eds.), Making Our Research Useful Grahame Clark, Prehistory at Cambridge and beyond Theresa R. Richardson, The Century of the Child: The Mental Hygiene Movement and Social Policy in the United States and Canada Anne Edwards, Regulation and Repression: The Study of Social Control Michael V. Angrosino, Documents of Interaction: Biography, Autobiography, and Life History in Social Science Perspective Michael Hechter, Principles of Group Solidarity Partrick Kierans, Glenn Drover and David Williams, Welfare and Worker Participation Mary Mccannery Gergen (ed.), Feminist Thought and the Structure of Knowledge Richard V. Ericson, Patricia M. Baranek and Janet B.L. Chan, Visualizing Deviance: A Study of New Organizations Sheila Allen and Carol Wolkowitz, Homeworking: Myths and Realities Calvin W. Redekop and Samuel J. Steiner (eds.), Mennonite Identity: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Robert A. Stebbins, Canadian Football: The View From The Helmet Anne Innis Dagg and Patricia J. Thompson, MisEducation: Women & Canadian Universities Cyril H. Levitt and William Shaffir, The Riots at Christie Pits     

Racial differences in retirement income: the roles of public and private income sources

Despite great overall improvement in the elderly's economic status over the past two decades, minority elders still comprise the poorest population group of all. Nonetheless, the income security of minority elders has not been given special attention in the scrutiny in recent years of the size and the future of various federal programs affecting older persons. Based on data from the 1971, 1981, and 1991 public-use data tapes of the Current Population Survey, the racial difference in income status of the elderly and the role of Social Security and Supplemental Security income versus that of income from private sources are analyzed in terms of how income inequality among races is ameliorated or escalated. The findings show that racial/ethnic differences in income status increased between 1970 and 1990. The findings also confirm that, for both elderly singles and couples, Social Security is the most important income source. Without it, poverty rates among elderly black couples, for example, would have increased by as much as 48.5 percentage points in 1990. Policies that would help improve the income status of the low-income elderly are discussed.     

The Impact of Authority Relations and Feedback Delivery Method on Performance

ABSTRACT

The proliferation of technology has been changing feedback delivery methods in organizations. However, the effectiveness of feedback delivery methods can vary depending on social dynamics (e.g., authority relations) in the organization. The current study was designed to examine the impact of authority relations and feedback delivery methods on performance. A total of 120 participants were recruited to work on a simulated cell-phone assembly task and were exposed to one of the four feedback conditions: (a) authority figure with face-to-face feedback, (b) authority figure with e-mail feedback, (c) non-authority figure with face-to-face feedback, and (d) non-authority figure with e-mail feedback. Results showed that while both feedback delivery methods resulted in high performance with the presence of an authority figure, only face-to-face feedback resulted in high performance with a non-authority figure. Practical considerations for effective feedback delivery methods in relation to authority figures are also discussed.     

Causality in Contemporary American Sociology: An Empirical Assessment and Critique

Using a unique data set of causal usage drawn from research articles published between 2006–2008 in the American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review, this article offers an empirical assessment of causality in American sociology. Testing various aspects of what we consider the conventional wisdom on causality in the discipline, we find that (1) “variablistic” or “covering law” models are not the dominant way of making causal claims, (2) research methods affect but do not determine causal usage, and (3) the use of explicit causal language and the concept of “mechanisms” to make causal claims is limited. Instead, we find that metaphors and metaphoric reasoning are fundamental for causal claims‐making in the discipline. On this basis, we define three dominant causal types used in sociology today, which we label the Probabilistic, Initiating and Conditioning types. We theorize this outcome as demonstrating the primary role that cognitive models play in providing inference‐rich metaphors that allow sociologists to map causal relationships on to empirical processes.     

An Inside‐Out Marketing Strategy for Innovation among Human Service Nonprofits in South Korea

In the increasingly competitive nonprofit market, innovation may be the only choice for survival among human service nonprofits. Considering the importance of service encounters and high dependence on human resources, internal marketing has potential as a management strategy to improve innovative activities in human service nonprofits. To examine the effect of internal marketing strategy focusing on employees, this study investigates the mediating effect of customer orientation in the pathway from internal marketing to innovation. The findings from 258 community‐based social service centers in South Korea support the positive impact of internal marketing on customer orientation and innovation, although the significant evidence for the mediating effect of customer orientation is not found. The current study suggests implications for practice and future research.     

High-dimensional Markowitz portfolio optimization problem: empirical comparison of covariance matrix estimators

We compare the performance of recently developed regularized covariance matrix estimators for Markowitz's portfolio optimization and of the minimum variance portfolio (MVP) problem in particular. We focus on seven estimators that are applied to the MVP problem in the literature; three regularize the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix, and the other four assume the sparsity of the true covariance matrix or its inverse. Comparisons are made with two sets of long-term S&P 500 stock return data that represent two extreme scenarios of active and passive management. The results show that the MVPs with sparse covariance estimators have high Sharpe ratios but that the naive diversification (also known as the ‘uniform (on market share) portfolio’) still performs well in terms of wealth growth.