论非汉字文化圈汉语学习者的拼音依赖症

汉语拼音依赖症是很多非汉字圈的汉语学习者易患的病症,如果得不到及时提醒和治疗,这种病症便会滚雪球般带来一系列的"后遗症".列出"后遗症"、挖出病症成因后再有针对性地提出克服病症的积极建议,以对症下药、治"病"救人;同时,对那些正准备投身汉语学习的学习者们也能起到"防疫"作用.     

Informational lobbying under the shadow of political pressure

We examine the incentives of an interest group to provide verifiable policy-relevant information to a political decision-maker and to exert political pressure on her. In our view information provision is a risky attempt to affect the politician’s beliefs about the desirability of the lobby’s objective. The circumstances under which political pressure can be applied specify the lobby’s valuation of different beliefs of the politician and, thus, her attitude toward risk. We identify several factors that induce risk proclivity (and thus information provision), which allows to explain the stylized fact that lobbies engage both in information provision and political pressure. Moreover, our approach gives a novel explanation for the fact that interest groups often try to provide information credibly. We finally study the extent to which this preference for credibility is robust and identify some instances in which lobbies may prefer to strategically withhold information.     

Public Support for Policies to Reduce Risk After Hurricane Sandy

A phone survey was conducted in New Jersey in 2013 four months after the second of two major devastating tropical storms (Sandy in 2012 and Irene in 2011). The objective was to estimate public support for restricting land uses in flood zones, requiring housing to be built to resist storm waters, and otherwise increasing mitigation and resilience. Respondents who supported these mitigation and resilience policies disproportionately were concerned about global climate change, trusted climate scientists and the federal government, and were willing to contribute to a redevelopment program through taxes, bonds, and fees. They also tended to have collectivist and egalitarian worldviews. Half of the respondents supported at least four of the seven risk‐reducing policies. How their support translates into public policy remains to be seen. Lack of willingness to personally fund these policies is an obstacle.     

Development,Evaluation, and Validation of Environmental Assessment Tools to Evaluate the College Nutrition Environment

Abstract

Objective: To develop, evaluate, and validate 2 nutrition environment assessment tools (surveys), for specific use in combating overweight on college/university campuses. Participants and Methods: Invitations to complete surveys were e-mailed to food service and health center directors at 47 universities, Winter 2008. Overall response rate was 48%. Responses from the 39 individuals who completed tool evaluations at the end of each survey were analyzed. Follow-up interviews and site visits performed through Summer 2008 validated responses. Results: The majority of respondents (64%) indicated tools were effective at assessing their nutrition environments; 78% believed these types of assessment tools to be important to their school. Conclusion: Food service and health center directors support use of nutrition environment assessment tools and found them effective at clarifying existing nutrition programs, policies, and food offerings on their campuses. Conducting assessments using these tools could improve university nutrition environments by identifying areas needing improvement.     

Determining the capacity of a transportation system—Passenger airlines

Capacity measurement is critical to the evaluation of the effectiveness with which existing output capabilities are being utilized, of the potential effects of re-allocating current facilities among the mix of products and services which the given system can provide, and of the prospective effects of investments in additional major capital goods. This paper illustrates how the multiple dimensions of capacity may be encompassed for complex transportation systems, as illustrated by passenger airlines.     

Adverse Selection,Bequests, Crowding Out,and Private Demand for Insurance: Evidence from the Long-term Care Insurance Market

Adverse selection, moral hazard, and crowding out by public insurance have all been proposed as theoretical reasons for why the market for private long-term care insurance has been slow to evolve in the U.S. Using national samples of the elderly and near elderly, this study investigates which is most important. The data contain direct measures of risk aversion, expectations of future nursing home use and living to old age, and the bequest motive. For both groups, we find evidence of adverse selection, and, for the elderly, crowding out of private long-term care insurance by Medicaid. However, we do not find that demand for such insurance is motivated either by bequest or exchange motives.     

What makes a big demonstration? Exploring the impact of mobilization strategies on the size of demonstrations

ABSTRACT

Massive demonstrations are the staple of powerful social movements, but research on the factors affecting the size of demonstrations (in terms of number of attendants) is almost nonexistent. Why do some demonstrations pack long avenues with masses of people while other ones barely fill a street corner? Combining resource mobilization, political opportunity, and framing theories, we argue that mobilization strategies – the sequence of decisions and actions taken by protest organizers before staging a protest – shape demonstration size. Multivariate models with 937 Chilean demonstrations between 2000 and 2012 show that demonstrations are larger when they display more demands (especially universalistic demands), target the national government, attract more organizations (especially umbrella organizations), and mobilize cohesive groups with broad public support. We reinforce the internal validity of our argument using interviews with movement leaders and secondary research on Chilean society.