Gamson’s law and hedonic games

This note adds one celebrated coalition formation game due to Gamson (Am Soc Rev 26:373–382 1961a, Am Soc Rev 26:565–573, 1961b) in the list of applications of the theory of hedonic games explored by Banerjee et al. (Soc Choice Welf 18:135–153, 2001) and Bogomolnaia and Jackson (Games Econ Behav 38: 204–230, 2002). We apply their results to study the original Gamson game and offer extensions both to a multi-dimensional characteristics space and to an infinite number of players.     

From cultural knowledge to intercultural communicative competence: changing perspectives on the role of culture in foreign language teaching

Approaches to the concept of culture and teaching cultural competence in a foreign language classroom have been changing over the last decades. The paper summarises, compares, contrasts and evaluates four major approaches to teaching cultural competence in foreign language teaching, that is, knowledge-based approach, contrastive approach, Communicative Language Teaching and intercultural communicative competence approach.     

“THE WAR FOR THE FARE”: HOW DRIVER COMPENSATION AFFECTS BUS SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Prior to 2007, two systems of bus driver compensation coexisted in Santiago, Chile: one paid drivers per passenger transported, while the other paid a fixed wage. Per‐passenger drivers engaged in “The War for the Fare,” altering their driving patterns to compete for passengers. Examining these systems on similar routes in Santiago, we observed two key findings. Compared with the fixed‐wage system, the per‐passenger system leads to (1) 13% shorter passenger wait times, via reduced bunching of buses and (2) 67% more accidents per kilometer driven, via more aggressive driving. We discuss implications for the design of incentives in public transit. (JEL L92, M52, R41)     

The Jackknife estimate of covariance of two Kaplan–Meier integrals with covariables

In this paper the Jackknife estimate of covariance of two Kaplan–Meier integrals with covariates is introduced. Its strong consistency is established under mild conditions. Several applications of the estimator are discussed.     

Expanded renal transplantation: a competing risk model approach

Multi-state models (MSMs) are useful to analyze survival data when, besides the event of main interest, one or more intermediate states of the individual are identified. These models take the several existing states and the possible transitions among them into account. At the same time, covariate effects on each transition intensity may be investigated separately and, therefore, MSMs are more flexible than the standard Cox proportional hazards model. In this work, we use MSMs to investigate the impact of the quality of a transplanted kidney for a group of patients at the Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias. Specifically, we use an illness-death model to study the evolution of patients with kidney disease who received a renal transplant after a dialysis period. The intermediate state is defined as the failure of the received organ, while the terminating state is the death of the patient. In order to increase the potential number of organs available for transplant, the standards of quality for the transplanted kidneys were relaxed (the new criteria are labeled expanded criteria), and these ‘expanded kidneys’ were transplanted in appropriate candidates (older patients, with higher prevalence of diabetes mellitus). Results suggest that the expanded kidneys have a minor effect on survival, while both the kidney mortality and the risk of death increase with the patient's age and the serum creatinine and serum hemoglobin levels.     

马克思主义哲学中国化中的"解释学应用"问题

在马克思主义哲学中国化过程中,只有通过当代解释学意义上的应用,我们才能达到对马克思主义哲学的科学理解和解释。也只有在此基础上,我们才能既创新和发展马克思主义哲学,又筹划和开创我们民族自身的未来。     

《典论·论文》:文学自觉的第一声号角

曹丕所处的建安时代,是人们开始把目光投向自身,真正地去认识自己作为人的地位和价值,从而走向人的自觉的时代,这在文学的创造和批评方面则表现为"文学的自觉".而曹丕的<典论·论文>是他关于人生价值思考的成果,体现了"人的自觉",而他对于文学的地位和价值的肯定,对各种文体的区分,以及所提出的"文以气为主"的主张和文学批评的原则等等方面,则表现出对人生意义的思考,对自我价值的认可,并赋于文学以真正独立的地位,它是文学自觉的第一声号角.     

Serious Leisure,Motivation to Volunteer and Subjective Well-Being of Volunteers in Recreational Events

In this paper, we examined the relationships between motivation to volunteer, serious leisure, and the subjective well-being of volunteers at the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition. This study used convenience sampling to recruit a total of 1,094 volunteers. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were conducted for data analysis. The results of this study revealed that serious leisure positively associated with both motivation to volunteer and volunteers’ subjective well-being, while the association between motivation to volunteer and subjective well-being, at a level of 0.5, was not significant. These results suggest that greater attention in future research should be paid to the relationship between motivation to volunteer and volunteers’ subjective well-being, with a focus placed on implications for volunteers’ subjective well-being.     

Materialism in Pedagogy Students in Chile

Many studies have used Richins and Dawson’s (J Consum Res 19: 303–316, 1992) Material Values Scale (MVS), applying it to different types of populations that exhibit a particular psychometric behavior, and showing little stability in their factorial structure. In the present study, 1,070 pedagogy students from the northern, central and southern regions of Chile answered the MVS. This sample was randomly divided in two. Using the first sub-sample (N = 539), an exploratory factorial analysis was carried out, from which a structure of nine items was grouped into two factors called “Social Success” and “Personal Happiness”, which presented adequate reliability. Later, with the second sub-sample (N = 531), the factorial structure indicated above was put to the test through a confirmatory factorial analysis. The data from the model show that the scale contains 8 items in total, grouped into two dimensions. The factorial loads are significant at the level of 1 %, which indicates that the 2-factor structure can be confirmed. Finally—using the proposed structure—the presence of the students’ material values was evaluated.     

“严复书札”伪作与严复伊藤博文“同学”说的再传播

"文革"末期,李学忠先生所藏一批"严复书札",曾由常州博物馆转呈周恩来总理,经周恩来组织专家鉴定为伪作。近年据中国社会科学院近代史研究所图书馆缩微胶片整理发表的9通"严复书札",与前述伪作笔迹相同,错误百出,且其中《致皙子》函系剽窃自《大公报》所载《航公致杨皙子书》。有的学者据伪作重新肯定严复与伊藤博文是"同学",甚至断言"同学说"的始作俑者可能就是严复本人,显然是不正确的。