Triangulation in practice

An evaluation study was designed using a between-method triangulation strategy. Two study teams gathered and analyzed data about the effectiveness of a formal process for long range program planning. One team used a mail questionnaire and the other, on-site open-ended interviews. Initial plans for coordination between the two teams were misguided and, fortunately, were subverted during data collection and analysis. The evaluation strategy and its derailment are discussed in terms of the purposes of triangulation and the forces that work against sensible intentions for coordination in multimethod studies.     

Metaphysics and professional resistance to program evaluation

One of the most common and most difficult problems confronting program evaluators is the resistance they encounter when attempting to implement evaluation efforts. The philosophical and psychological foundations of this resistance are explored. Problems in the evaluative paradigm are presented. Value differences between evaluators and practitioners are highlighted. Emotional bases for practitioner behavior are clarified and types and loci of resistance are outlined. Suggestions for coping strategies are discussed.     

基于序数信息的博弈理论

在许多社会或政治科学的问题中, 个人的主观偏好信息往往是通过定性分析得到的, 难 以表示成效用形式, 但却可以用序数形式来表示. 本文基于决策者对策略的偏好序数信息而不 是支付函数或效用水平, 讨论了一种新的博弈理论或模型, 给出了若干序均衡的概念, 并进行 了例示分析. 这种基于序数信息的博弈理论可以看作是现有基于支付函数博弈理论的推广和 补充.     

Fertility and the Easterlin hypothesis: an assessment of the literature

Focusing just on the fertility aspects of the Easterlin hypothesis, this paper offers a critical assessment – rather than just a selective citation – of the extensive fertility literature generated by Easterlin, and a complete inventory of data and methodologies in seventy-six published analyses. With an equal number of micro- and macro-level analyses using North American data (twenty-two), the „track record” of the hypothesis is the same in both venues, with fifteen providing significant support in each case. The literature suggests unequivocal support for the relativity of the income concept in fertility, but is less clear regarding the source(s) of differences in material aspirations, and suggests that the observed relationship between fertility and cohort size has varied across countries and time periods due to the effects of additional factors not included in most models. Received: 16 July 1996 / Accepted: 26 September 1997     

Estimation for semiparametric varying coefficient models with different smoothing variables under random right censoring

In this paper we study a semiparametric varying coefficient model when the response is subject to random right censoring. The model gives an easy interpretation due to its direct connectivity to the classical linear model and is very flexible since nonparametric functions which accommodates various nonlinear interaction effects between covariates are admitted in the model. We propose estimators for this model using mean-preserving transformation and establish their asymptotic properties. The estimation procedure is based on the profiling and the smooth backfitting techniques. A simulation study is presented to show the reliability of the proposed estimators and an automatic bandwidth selector is given in a data-driven way.     

Near universal consistency of the maximum pseudolikelihood estimator for discrete models

Maximum pseudolikelihood (MPL) estimators are useful alternatives to maximum likelihood (ML) estimators when likelihood functions are more difficult to manipulate than their marginal and conditional components. Furthermore, MPL estimators subsume a large number of estimation techniques including ML estimators, maximum composite marginal likelihood estimators, and maximum pairwise likelihood estimators. When considering only the estimation of discrete models (on a possibly countably infinite support), we show that a simple finiteness assumption on an entropy-based measure is sufficient for assessing the consistency of the MPL estimator. As a consequence, we demonstrate that the MPL estimator of any discrete model on a bounded support will be consistent. Our result is valid in parametric, semiparametric, and nonparametric settings.     

Rule of law and balance of power sustain US dollar preeminence

In the last few decades, and especially since the financial crisis of 2007–2008, uncertainty about the future of the US dollar has been mounting. A broad-based theoretical debate on the decline of the dollar and its consequences has begun. There is a large body of studies that sees the origin of an international money as a market-led process. In this view, because the United States will very soon lose its economic pre-eminence the US dollar will consequently share its international role with other currencies or even be replaced by the renminbi. In this paper we contest this argument, focusing on the conditions that make a fiat money acceptable in international transactions. Trust in a type of money like this needs an institutional framework that guarantees the property rights of currency holders. This framework implies a high level of rule of law domestically and a high level of state capability in the international balance of power. Since at present no other currency fulfils these two requirements at the same time, the dominance of the US dollar as an international money is going to last.     

古汉语“A空+N”与“N+A空”的语义与句法历时对比研究

基于CCL语料库,定性与定量相结合历时考察古汉语表量构式“A空+N”和“N+A空”的语义特征与句法功能异同。研究发现,“A空+N”构式多表“确量”,① “N+A空”构式多表“约量”;② “A空+N”构式仅作谓语、定语、补语,而“N+A空”构式可充当主、谓、宾、定、状、补,且前者多作谓语,后者首作宾语,次作定语;所遵循表量准则差异导致表量语义差异,而表量语义差异催生了不同构式和句法功能差异。     

女娲神话重述的文化政治--以遗产化运动为中心

20世纪后半叶以来,女娲神话作为文化遗产在“神话主义”的逻辑下被政治性运用与重述。在文化遗产评选与保护过程中,女娲的遗迹得到重建,女娲的民间信仰活动得以恢复。女娲在现代国家文化语境下获得了新身份,被重述为文化英雄和人文始祖。同时,围绕女娲神话遗产开展的庙会、旅游、公祭活动,使女娲神话重新整合为当代公共文化。     

N2: reading,writing, walking the South African highway

This piece is drawn from a larger project that asks what it might mean to write a cultural history or “biography” of the longest highway in South Africa, the N2. Influenced by literature on the everyday, on infrastructures and the “infra-ordinary,” my approach pays attention to the highway as a material artefact. Who builds, maintains and manages it; who makes their life along it; what subcultures, lexicons and social behaviours can be read off it? Exploring the possibilities of creative non-fiction within the environmental humanities, the piece here unfolds as an exercise in psychogeography, or a deconstructed travelogue. While much travel writing about modern Cape Town describes a (motorised) journey from airport to city, here I reverse the gaze and proceed on foot from town to the airport along the hard shoulder of the N2. In doing so I try to understand the vexed relations between drivers and pedestrians in a divided city, and to conduct an “anthropology of the near” on the road reserve: perhaps the most visible but least contemplated part of the modern urban landscape.