媒体：资本与民主的竞技场——《富媒体穷民主——不确定时代的传播政治》阅读札记

美国学者麦克切斯尼所著的《富媒体穷民主—不确定时代的传播政治》是一本传播政治经济学著作。作者从美国媒体的集中化入手,进而将分析扩大到全世界,论述了媒体与民主的悖论。认为当今美国的媒体过于集中化、商业化,随着媒体对商业利益的无止境追求,由于商业逻辑的驱使,媒体成为反民主的主要力量,最终背离了新闻的要义。     

官僚、幕友、胥吏:清代地方政府的三维体系

明清之际,中国绅士的条件和地位得以逐步地固定下来,随之,在政治体制中也形成了一种隐性的绅衿支配。随着幕友阶层队伍的扩大和游幕制度化,在清代各级地方政府逐渐形成了一个轮廓较清晰的官僚、幕友、胥吏既相互依赖,又相互牵制的三维体系。在“异族”统治下,这种隐性的绅衿支配体系虽然伴随着许多弊害,但在使中国封建社会保持相对稳定方面发挥了重要的作用。     

Core-periphery or decentralized? Topological shifts of specialized information on Twitter

In this paper we investigate shifts in Twitter network topology resulting from the type of information being shared. We identified communities matching areas of agricultural expertise and measured the core-periphery centralization of network formations resulting from users sharing generic versus specialized information. We found that centralization increases when specialized information is shared and that the network adopts decentralized formations as conversations become more generic. The results are consistent with classical diffusion models positing that specialized information comes with greater centralization, but they also show that users favor decentralized formations, which can foster community cohesion, when spreading specialized information is secondary.     

Network centralization with the Gil Schmidt power centrality index

Network centralization is a network index that measures the degree of dispersion of all node centrality scores in a network from the maximum centrality score obtained in the network. The Gil Schmidt power centrality index was developed for use in describing the political networks of Mexico, Gil and Schmidt [Gil, J., Schmidt, S., 1996a. The origin of the Mexican network of power. In: International Social Network Conference, Charleston, SC, USA, pp. 22–25; Gil, J., Schmidt, S., 1996b. The political network in Mexico. Social Networks 18, 355–381]. Upper bounds for network centralization, using the Gil Schmidt power centrality index, are derived for networks of fixed order and for when the network is bipartite, such as can arise from two mode data. In each case the networks that have maximum network centralization are described.     

全国辅助器具服务网络建设研究

经过多年的建设,我国已建立了主体多元的辅助器具服务网络体系,主要由残联系统、民政系统、医疗系统和社会化的辅助器具网络组成。受管理体制的影响,分属于不同系统的辅助器具网络存在资源整合度不高、规模小、专业化水平不高、服务覆盖面小、定位定性不准确等问题。下一步辅助器具服务网络建设的重点工作包括:将残联系统辅助器具网络打造成中心化的辅助器具适配服务机构,加强县级及以下辅助器具机构的建设,提升基层辅助器具服务机构的能力,开拓社区资源,打造社区辅助器具资源平台。     

皖江城市带承接产业转移集中区建设的经验借鉴及对策

基于应对大规模承接产业转移、凸显皖江城市带示范效应和探索创新承接模式的需要,集中区建设应在借鉴天津滨海新区成功经验的基础上,充分发挥皖江黄金水道作用,创新多元化投融资体系,开拓招商引资方式,积极培育产业集群,并通过集约优化土地利用和推进配套设施建设等措施,探索一条具有安徽特色的集中区建设工程.     

The Government and Statutory Bodies in Hong Kong: Centralization and Autonomy

Over the past decade in Hong Kong, the relationship and accountability of statutory bodies to core government, to the legislature, and to the broader public have been the subject of continuing and, as yet, unresolved debate. Faced with scandals and other serious problems in a number of the major statutory bodies, and in the context of its own problems of lack of political support and legitimacy, the Tung administration tended to reduce the autonomy of the statutory bodies by increasing central control and integrating their functions with those of core government. Legislators have seen the problems of statutory bodies from a rather different perspective, arguing that they result from a lack of accountability and transparency. The government’s eventual concession to the need for reform has resulted, since 2003, in a review of the principles governing the work of all advisory and statutory bodies and of specific statutory bodies which have experienced serious problems. This article examines the principles contained in the review and assesses whether they are likely to lead to increased autonomy and improvements in governance standards.     

Network structure and team performance: The case of English Premier League soccer teams

A defining feature of a work group is how its individual members interact. Building on a dataset of 283,259 passes between professional soccer players, this study applies mixed-effects modeling to 76 repeated observations of the interaction networks and performance of 23 soccer teams. Controlling for unobserved characteristics, such as the quality of the teams, the study confirms previous findings with panel data: networks characterized by high intensity (controlling for interaction opportunities) and low centralization are indeed associated with better team performance.     

Internal resource waste and centralization degree in two-stage systems: An efficiency analysis

Internal resource waste refers to the waste in the intermediate resources between the upstream stage and downstream stage in a production or service system. This study examines a system with a two-stage structure, in which the outputs from the first stage are taken as the inputs for the second stage. Two-stage systems can exist in centralized, decentralized, or mixed organizational modes. In this paper, we propose two-stage DEA models considering a degree of centralization that makes it possible to measure internal resource waste in different system modes. Some managerial insights are tested and verified from the perspective of efficiency analysis. We find that: 1) when there is only one intermediate measure in a centralized two-stage system, internal resource waste can be eliminated completely, and 2) a higher degree of centralization in a two-stage system can lead to less internal resource waste and more expected outputs. Finally, we present a numerical example and two practical real-world examples that illustrate our approach and findings.