大学解读中的理性主义和自然主义——基于纽曼、洪堡及克尔理念的比较分析

大学性质解读分歧的缘由之一在于方法论差异,即不同认知主体对大学的诠释选择了大学存在的不同维度。纽曼将大学看作传播和推广普遍知识而非增扩知识、理智开启而非道德教化的"博雅教育"场所;洪堡将大学视为首先是知识创造而不是知识传递,并通过知识创造培养人才,以达成心智和德性塑造的研究机构;克尔则将大学理解为不断被社会环境所同化,结构功能日趋复杂和多元,以至成为包罗万象的"巨型"组织。以上三种理解不仅依次代表了典型大学演进史中风格相异的英国模式、德国模式和美国模式,而且体现了大学认知与大学存在不同维度间的特殊选择和构造关系。纽曼理念刻画了大学作为教育机构应当所是的理想状态,具有极端理性主义的方法论特点;洪堡理念刻画了大学作为研究机构应当所是的理想状态,具有温和理性主义的方法论特点;克尔理念刻画了大学作为利益相关者社会化了的生存场所实际所是的实然状态,具有自然主义的方法论特点。单一理性主义和单一自然主义对大学的解读不仅都存在认知缺陷,而且在实践上会导致大学存在的退化。前者因脱离生活实践而会使大学缺乏生机和社会意义;后者在市场化、商业化或学术资本主义的裹挟下,已使大学面临异化或消亡的威胁。抑制这种威胁的前提之一,是将大学的存在看作应然系统和实然系统的统一,并据此予以建设、运行和管理。     

Emotions in economic action and interaction

How do emotions influence economic action? Current literature recognizes the importance of emotions for economy because they either help individuals perform economic roles through emotion management or enhancement of emotional intelligence, or because they aid rationality through their influence on preference formation. All these strands of research investigate the link between emotions and economy from an atomistic/individualistic perspective. I argue for a different approach, one that adopts a relational perspective, focuses on emotional embeddedness and examines how emotions matter in economic interactions. Emotional embeddedness research starts with a premise that emotions result from and are influenced by interactions between economic actors during the economic process where emotional currents and their visceral and physical manifestations come to the fore. This increases the uncertainty in economic transactions and complicates the given means-ends logic of rational economic decision making, yielding economic action principles different from utility maximization. I propose two types of such creative economic action in this paper: improvisation and situational adaptation. Improvisation characterizes situations where ends (goals) and means are unclear at the beginning of a transaction process and get articulated as a consequence of emotional embeddedness experienced during a process. Situational adaptation characterizes situations in which means or ends of action change because of interaction-induced emotions that prompt actors to choose new means/ends. The article concludes with a call for empirical research that explicates further the influence of emotions not merely for rational economic action but also creative economic interactions.     

Expectation maximization estimates of the offspring probabilities in a class of multitype branching processes with binary family trees

When proliferating cells are counted in several independent colonies at some time points, the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters of the multitype branching process are obtained trough an expectation maximization algorithm. In the case of an offspring distribution governed by a Markov branching process with binary family trees, this method, relying then on a partial knowledge of the tree, yields the same estimates as those computed with the complete knowledge of the tree.     

Krisenkommunikation in Virtuellen Realitäten – Evaluation eines Serious Games zum Training von Soft Skills in Krisenstäben

The training of soft skills in crisis management teams is a central precondition for efficient and successful communication which is urgently needed in a disaster situation. However, previous trainings and simulations are costly in terms of time and money. By means of serious games in virtual environments, these disadvantages can be reduced insofar as users can participate in the multi-user game by using their workstation computer. The DREAD ED project provides a serious game in a virtual environment which simulates the work of crisis management teams during a disaster situation. The virtual training platform was tested by students and experts on crisis management in two trials. It appears that the virtual environment presented is suitable for an effective training of group dynamic and cooperation in a disaster situation.     

Knowledge attributes and the choice of knowledge transfer mechanism in networks: the case of franchising

In this paper we develop a knowledge-based view on the choice of knowledge transfer mechanisms in franchising that integrates results from the information richness theory. Starting from the information richness theory we argue that tacitness of system knowledge, operationalized by codifiability, teachability and complexity, determines the information richness of the knowledge transfer mechanisms of franchising firms. We examine the following hypotheses: (1) If the franchisor’s knowledge is characterized by a high degree of codifiability and teachability and a low degree of complexity, knowledge transfer mechanisms with a lower degree of information richness are used; (2) If the franchisor’s knowledge is characterized by a high degree of complexity and a low degree of codifiability and teachability, knowledge transfer mechanisms with a higher degree of information richness are used. We test these hypotheses by using data from 52 franchising firms in the Austrian franchise sector. The data provide support for the hypotheses.     

Effect of urbanization on surface water chemistry in south-central Texas

The use of state factors can adequately describe the biogeochemistry and geochemistry of relatively undisturbed surface waters. Watersheds with increasing proportions of urban and suburban land use, particularly in sub-tropical, semi-arid and arid urban areas, that utilize irrigation for turfgrass and landscaping may have a low flow urban signature that relates to the source water used by municipal water suppliers. We examined thirteen watersheds; four with waste water treatment plants (24–67% urbanization), four rural (< 30% urbanization) and five urban (> 30% urbanization) in a humid sub-tropical oak savannah in south-central Texas. Three of our urban and one of our rural watersheds displayed the signature of municipal tap water. Three out of four watersheds with waste water treatment plants displayed the signature of treated sewage effluent. We suggest as a result of this study that the chemistry of municipal tap water particularly that with high sodium and bicarbonate, used in urban watersheds for irrigating turfgrass and landscapes may have detrimental effects on base flow stream water quality after it has interacted with watershed soils.     

Measuring the Grassroots: Puzzles of Cultivating the Grassroots from the Top Down

Does a participatory, open‐ended organizational format inspire creativity and draw on participants' local knowledge? Many nonprofits operate under this assumption, and many of their financial sponsors agree, and therefore demand precise accounts documenting the nonprofits' “participatory” formats. In the U.S. youth civic engagement projects described here, the practice of accounting itself had an effect, regardless of funders' goals. Volunteers devoted more time to documenting just how participatory, open‐ended and grassroots they were than they devoted to any other topic. Organizers strenuously tried to avert attention from accounting's importance, but could not avoid it. Volunteers could not reflect on the accounting process, or on the political questions behind it; knowledge of it became a repressed institutional intuition.     

‘An Earthquake Shocked Up the Land!’ Children's Communication During Play With Siblings and Friends

The construction of shared meanings strategies (e.g., introductions, extensions) and use of internal state language (e.g., references to mental states) during play were examined across two relationship contexts (siblings and friends) in 65 focal kindergarten‐aged children (M age = 56.4 months; SD = 5.71 months). Strategies to construct shared meanings were associated with play session; specifically focal children employed introductions more often with their siblings whereas positive/neutral responses and prosocial strategies were used more frequently with their friends. Findings regarding birth order position indicated that older focal children were more likely to engage in non‐maintenance (e.g., negative) behaviors and explanations with their siblings whereas younger focal children employed extensions of play ideas more often with their siblings than friends. Associations between shared meaning strategies and internal state language were positively correlated across both relationship contexts, with more significant associations found in the sibling play session. Findings highlight the high level of sophisticated play interaction among children during play; these interactions were rich and varied and are discussed in light of recent research and theory.