Restructuring of the Financial Industry: The Disappearance of Locally Owned Traditional Financial Services in Rural America

Restructuring in the financial services industry has altered the relationship between small business owners and capital. In the past small businesses have relied on relational, or soft data, lending from locally owned banks for capital. The proliferation of absentee‐owned local branch networks brought standardized practices, thus eliminating the autonomy of local loan officers to utilize soft data in loan decisions. In this article we examine the changes in the percentage of traditional financial services that are locally owned in three county types: metropolitan, micropolitan, and noncore. We utilize the Longitudinal Business Database at the U.S. Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies. We examine changes in local ownership of traditional financial services between 1976 and 2007. We find that the rate of decline of local ownership has been greatest in the noncore (most rural) counties. We also explore to what extent these patterns are related to the emergence of alternative financial services during the same period. We find that such alternative services are growing in all three county types, but at rates not significantly different than the population growth for these county types. We supplement our analysis with data from qualitative interviews with small business owners throughout rural Texas. We conclude with a discussion of implications and plans for future research.     

A longitudinal comparative study of the impact of the experience of social work education on interpersonal and critical thinking capabilities

Head (the intellectual/critical thinking) and Heart (the emotional-interpersonal) are long established twin-pillars of social work. Their importance is not just reflected in literature devoted to each but in the professional proficiencies and capabilities expected for practice. While clearly intertwined—both operate together in practice—and central to practice proficiencies/capabilities, implying implicit measurement of standards, there is a curious lack of research focusing on measurement of the two together. This novel study is the first to carry out a longitudinal comparative study examining the extent to which interpersonal and critical thinking capabilities are developed during the lifetime of qualifying social work training as measured through programme performance and development. It focuses on four cohorts (n = 170) at two Universities (Undergraduate and Masters). While findings show the interpersonal significantly underpinned performance and outcome, critical thinking—though embedded in Masters programme performance—was less significant, particularly in the undergraduate programmes. The study concludes that we cannot assume interpersonal and critical thinking capabilities are always incorporated into the learning process and attention should be paid to the overt measurement of interpersonal and critical thinking capabilities together with the processes and mechanisms by which they are focused on in programmes.     

Blood Transfusion in Room 223

How educators handle conflicting views of Populism is important in engaging students in critical thinking.     

The recruitment and selection of hospital medical consultants

Abstract

The literature on selection has been dominated in recent decades by the ‘prediction’ paradigm. Such an approach requires a substantial number of positions to be filled in order to compute validity coefficients. There are other approaches, using a different paradigm, when concentrated on adjusting the organization and the employee. Here careful analysis of job demands is essential. This article describes such an analysis, taking the medical consultant as an example. The method can be used in an iterative way. It is useful when one has to work with small numbers of positions.     

阿拉伯伦理学

伊斯兰教前阿拉伯人的伦理道德是由他们生活的自然条件和沙漠社会所决定的 ,是一种不自觉的自然状态 ;阿拉伯人接受伊斯兰教信仰后 ,在人生观、宇宙观、生死观等诸多意识形态领域内的认识发生了重大的变化 ,发生了质的飞跃 ,这时候的伦理道德是一种自觉的理性表现。伊斯兰的基本信仰———确信真主及其使者———就成了伊斯兰道德的基础 ,一切言行都要按照真主的命令认真去做。阿拉伯伊斯兰伦理在道德与行为 (工作、弃恶从善、履行诺言等 )、道德与修养 (容忍、宽恕、平等、民主等 )、主张男女平等、维护妇女权益以及与现代文明关系诸多方面 ,都表现出了它独有的特征     

关敬吾论日本传统故事的类型与结构

本文是日本民俗学家关敬吾先生对日本传统故事的概念界定以及对之内容、结构特点的概括,作为“他山之石”,可以给中国民俗学理论研究提供参考。     

新媒体艺术的审美新奇--感官的延伸亦或损毁的共通感?

具有历史意义的技术革新不仅决定着现实世界中人与人之间的社会经济、政治关系,同时决定着人类感觉器官和人类自身本体性的改变。正如马克思指出的,技术形象地阐释了人与自然之间的相互作用,同时改变了人类在具体化时被历史性建构和发展的方式。麦克卢汉认为,由技术扩张带来的感官延伸会在所有的感官中产生新的感官比例。他还强调,多感官、多能力的延伸同属于一个经验范畴,因而必须协同一致。针对所谓的新媒体艺术的议题,笔者的目标是在当下后福特主义的情境中检测“解放性的新事物”。如果说,(新)媒体的影响力只能在能够改变人与人之间个体相互作用的方式中进行检验,联系麦克卢汉的相关理论,那么,不用考虑任何新“技术”,艺术解放力即被看作是消解共通感的变革力量。      

Evaluating the Use of Spatial Covariance Structures in the Analysis of Cardiovascular Imaging Data

This article investigates the choice of working covariance structures in the analysis of spatially correlated observations motivated by cardiac imaging data. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we found that the choice of covariance structure affects the efficiency of the estimator and power of the test. Choosing the popular unstructured working covariance structure results in an over-inflated Type I error possibly due to a sample size not large enough relative to the number of parameters being estimated. With regard to model fit indices, Bayesian Information Criterion outperforms Akaike Information Criterion in choosing the correct covariance structure used to generate data.     

Methods to assess measurement error in questionnaires of sedentary behavior

Sedentary behavior has already been associated with mortality, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Questionnaires are an affordable tool for measuring sedentary behavior in large epidemiological studies. Here, we introduce and evaluate two statistical methods for quantifying measurement error in questionnaires. Accurate estimates are needed for assessing questionnaire quality. The two methods would be applied to validation studies that measure a sedentary behavior by both questionnaire and accelerometer on multiple days. The first method fits a reduced model by assuming the accelerometer is without error, while the second method fits a more complete model that allows both measures to have error. Because accelerometers tend to be highly accurate, we show that ignoring the accelerometer's measurement error, can result in more accurate estimates of measurement error in some scenarios. In this article, we derive asymptotic approximations for the mean-squared error of the estimated parameters from both methods, evaluate their dependence on study design and behavior characteristics, and offer an R package so investigators can make an informed choice between the two methods. We demonstrate the difference between the two methods in a recent validation study comparing previous day recalls to an accelerometer-based ActivPal.     

阅读毛泽东文本：认识论问题

毛泽东的认识论并非严格意义上的经验主义,而是经验主义和理性主义的混合物。研究毛泽东的思想需要理论干预,应将其文本看作理论推演的实体,并关注文本中现有的理论主张、合乎逻辑的假设和建构方式及其相互间的关系以及这些关系的一致性和连贯性程度。