A new tool for urban governance or just rhetoric? The case of participatory budgeting in Taipei City

Increasing interest in participatory budgeting has been observed in local governments around the world. This paper stresses direct citizen participation in the budgeting process leads to good governance, deepens democracy and improves social justice, while also highlighting some challenges in its efficiency and effectiveness. Unlike participatory budgeting, the Sub-borough Chiefs Forum is a community-based representative democratic mechanism; it could be regarded as a form of participatory budgeting in a broad sense. If so, then did the Taipei programme simply duplicate the goals of the Forum or lead to a better governance by making up for the inadequacies of the Chiefs Forum? To find out whether the Taipei participatory budgeting programme made a difference, we carried out qualitative and quantitative comparisons of projects passed under the participatory budgeting process and at the Forum. We also interviewed several participatory budgeting participants and sub-borough chiefs. The findings suggested that participatory budgeting and the Forum generated different proposals and budget requests, and the Taipei programme supplemented the shortcomings of the Forum and therefore led to deeper civic engagement and better urban governance.     

What is Integration? A Comparative View from Immigrants and Municipal Policy

The ongoing project of citizenship construction in societies receiving international immigration demands a perspective that takes into account the interests, views and needs of all socio-demographic groups, including those of newcomers as potential new citizens. We interviewed representatives of 16 immigrant associations operating in the Spanish autonomous community of Galicia, reviewed immigration policy in 13 Spanish (Galician) municipalities, and interviewed 20 municipal government staff members who put these into practice. With this research, we aim to explore the perspectives of immigrants with respect to their own integration and to examine how these compare with local policies designed to facilitate these processes. By comparing the immigrant representatives' perceptions with local policy discourses and practice, our study reveals how local integration practice is not only inconsistent with its own policy discourse but also fails to consider and include immigrants' own understandings of what integration means and how it can be achieved.     

Determinants of the heavily right-tailed residential housing price in Tianjin

The housing price in Tianjin, one of the typical monocentric cities of China, exhibits a heavily right-tailed distribution even after the logarithm transformation of the price, which might lead to a biased estimation of the parameters under normal distribution assumption. Therefore, the extended Cox proportional hazards regression model and the generalized concept of relative risk are used to identify factors associated with the housing price. The analysis shows that the implementation dates of the macro regulation policies were related to the price changing trends. Qualities of public elementary and secondary schools were significantly associated with the housing price, and the associations between the structure and neighborhood characteristics and the housing price were influenced by the distance of the residential property to downtown Tianjin.KEYWORDS: Cox proportional hazards model, cumulative opportunity method, housing price, restricted cubic splines, relative risk     

论劳动争议案件审理程序衔接中若干实务问题

我国劳动争议处理体制实行诉讼前的“仲裁前置”程序,现行法律对劳动仲裁与劳动诉讼衔接中的许多问题规定得不甚明确,导致实务中存在许多模糊区域,进而使劳动者的合法权益维护受到了一定的阻碍。因此,研究劳动仲裁与劳动诉讼衔接中的相关问题,有重要的现实意义。劳动仲裁与劳动     

Evaluating the effect of a campus-wide social norms marketing intervention on alcohol-use perceptions,consumption, and blackouts

Objective: To evaluate the effect of a campus-wide social norms marketing intervention on alcohol-use perceptions, consumption, and blackouts at a large, urban, public university. Participants: 4,172 college students (1,208 freshmen, 1,159 sophomores, 953 juniors, and 852 seniors) who completed surveys in Spring 2015 for the Spit for Science Study, a longitudinal study of students' substance use and emotional health. Methods: Participants were e-mailed an online survey that queried campaign readership, perception of peer alcohol use, alcohol consumption, frequency of consumption, and frequency of blackouts. Associations between variables were evaluated using path analysis. Results: We found that campaign readership was associated with more accurate perceptions of peer alcohol use, which, in turn, was associated with self-reported lower number of drinks per sitting and experiencing fewer blackouts. Conclusions: This evaluation supports the use of social norms marketing as a population-level intervention to correct alcohol-use misperceptions and reduce blackouts.     

漫谈中美电影中消费文化的差异

本文结合几部影片浅析中美消费文化的差异。     

高校开展港澳区情教育的价值体认及策略

加强内地高校大学生对港澳区情教育消弭两地文化壁垒,舒缓心理认知偏见,促进两地高校交流与合作,理应成为我国国情教育的题中之义。截至目前,内地高校尚未系统将港澳区情教育纳入我国国情教育范畴,这不仅反映出我国国情教育的滞后性,并由此带来一系列问题。该文就此问题对高校开展港澳区情教育的价值体认和策略进行了探讨。     

Exploration and Firm Performance: The Moderating Impact of Competitive Strategy

In this study we examine the moderating effect of competitive strategy (including differentiation and cost‐leadership strategies) on the relationship between exploration and firm performance. We find that the moderating effect of differentiation strategy is positive while that of cost‐leadership strategy is negative. And, these moderating effects are stronger in a highly competitive context. This study offers an explanation for previous mixed findings on the linkage of exploration to firm performance and enriches the discipline's knowledge regarding the performance implications of exploration. Moreover, we respond directly to the appeal in research on competitive strategy to clarify the role played by competitive strategy in profiting from exploration.     

新农村建设中青年农民现代意识问题探究

青年农民是建设社会主义新农村的主体,青年农民素质的高低决定了农村的文明程度、进步状况以及所取得的文明成果的数量和质量,是农村全面建设小康社会的最本质、最核心的内容,也是解决“三农”问题最为迫切的要求和关键所在。培养具有现代意识的新型农民是推进新农村建设的关键环节。     

孙中山关于国共合作的心理场结构及其对最终走向的影响

关于孙中山第一次国共合作的态度,我们在以往的研究中或是对孙中山进行了过分拔高,忽视其阶级属性;或是将其过分贬低,仅仅等同为资产阶级利益的守护者。而引入心理场概念,对具体环境下孙中山心理场中影响国共合作的正负向量进行解析,可以还原其真实心态。这种心态也最终决定了第一次国共合作的走向。