徘徊在圣母和夏娃之间——论《拉格泰姆时代》中的女性形象和两性关系模式

对E．L．多克托罗《拉格泰姆时代》的文学评价大多集中在小说的叙述策略与历史重构、新历史主义、后现代主义艺术技巧、文本的历史性及其变形意向和电影手法上,小说中的女性被仅仅当作了背景和陪衬。笔者在对文本细读的基础上,运用理安·艾斯勒的两性关系模式——统治关系模式和伙伴关系模式——及女性主义相关理论诠释和解读了小说中的女性形象和两性关系。     

论张学良的和平统一观

张学良和平统一观的基本内涵是"息内争、御外侮"."息内争"与"御外侮"之间具有内在的、必然的联系,两者是相互影响、相互作用、相互制约的.这两方面共同影响着张学良政治生涯的所作所为.张学良和平统一观的形成发展过程及其实践是与其所经历的东北易帜、中原大战、西安事变等一些重大历史事件密切相关的,特定的历史时代和张学良本人与众不同的特殊经历决定了他极具特色的和平统一观.其和平统一观既具有进步性,又具有历史的局限性.     

通信反馈法对大学生二语写作效果的实验研究

研究采用定量分析法考查了非英语专业一年级152名大学生的作文测试成绩、性格因素对通信反馈机制功效的影响和学生对通信反馈教学的态度。结果发现基于内容的通信反馈教学比传统批改反馈方式对学生英语写作能力的提高有更积极的促进作用,尤其是在丰富写作内容、增强连贯方面效果较显著。研究能启发我们更好地理解写作的过程、认识和把握写作的本质、帮助提高二语写作教学效果。     

A generalized drop-the-loser rule for multi-treatment clinical trials

Urn models are popular for response adaptive designs in clinical studies. Among different urn models, Ivanova's drop-the-loser rule is capable of producing superior adaptive treatment allocation schemes. Ivanova [2003. A play-the-winner-type urn model with reduced variability. Metrika 58, 1–13] obtained the asymptotic normality only for two treatments. Recently, Zhang et al. [2007. Generalized drop-the-loser urn for clinical trials with delayed responses. Statist. Sinica, in press] extended the drop-the-loser rule to tackle more general circumstances. However, their discussion is also limited to only two treatments. In this paper, the drop-the-loser rule is generalized to multi-treatment clinical trials, and delayed responses are allowed. Moreover, the rule can be used to target any desired pre-specified allocation proportion. Asymptotic properties, including strong consistency and asymptotic normality, are also established for general multi-treatment cases.     

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS POLICY,COMPETITION AND INNOVATION

To what extent and in what form should the intellectual property rights (IPR) of innovators be protected? Should a company with a large technology lead over its rivals receive the same IPR protection as a company with a more limited advantage? In this paper, we develop a dynamic framework for the study of the interactions between IPR and competition, in particular to understand the impact of such policies on future incentives. The economy consists of many industries and firms engaged in cumulative (step‐by‐step) innovation. IPR policy regulates whether followers in an industry can copy the technology of the leader. We prove the existence of a steady‐state equilibrium and characterize some of its properties. We then quantitatively investigate the implications of different types of IPR policy on the equilibrium growth rate and welfare. The most important result from this exercise is that full patent protection is not optimal; instead, optimal policy involves state‐dependent IPR protection, providing greater protection to technology leaders that are further ahead than those that are close to their followers. This is because of a trickle‐down effect: providing greater protection to firms that are further ahead of their followers than a certain threshold increases the R&D incentives also for all technology leaders that are less advanced than this threshold.     

Testing for Homogeneity in Mixture Using Weighted Relative Entropy

In this article, we propose a test for homogeneity based on Kullback–Leibler information (also known as relative entropy). Though widely used in hypothesis testing problems, Kullback–Leibler information is not desirable to many researchers in the context of mixture because of its complicated form. In this article, a weighted relative entropy test (WE test), which has closed form expression in terms of the parameter estimators, is proposed. Theoretical results show that this test is consistent. Some simulation results demonstrate that the WE test is better than some leading tests when the mixture components come from normal distribution, and is competitive with them in the Poisson case. The usage of the test is illustrated in an example with data about acidity index of lakes.     

Statistical Comparison of the Goodness of Fit Delivered by Five Families of Distributions Used in Distribution Fitting

A basic assumption in distribution fitting is that a single family of distributions may deliver useful representation to the universe of available distributions. To date, little study has been conducted to compare the relative effectiveness of these families. In this article, five families are compared by fitting them to a sample of 20 distributions, using 2 fitting objectives: minimization of the L ₂ norm and four-moment matching. Values of L ₂ norm associated with the fitted families are used as input data to test for significant differences. The Pearson family and the RMM (Response Modeling Methodology) family significantly outperforms all other families.     

Gender and the credit rationing of small businesses

Rapid small business ownership growth rates among women have motivated research on issues related to gender and small business performance. The importance of credit access for the success of small businesses, as well as evidence that women have less access to credit than male business owners, has led researchers to explore the reasons for this. In this paper, we estimate a model of credit rationing by gender of the business owner. Our results are consistent with previous studies that find higher loan denial rates and lower loan application rates among women compared with men. Testing the robustness of the results we find that women seem to be rationing themselves in the credit market rather than being discriminated against by banks. Reasons for this self-rationing behavior are an important topic for further research.     

THE BASIC PUBLIC FINANCE OF PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have been justified because they release public funds or save on distortionary taxes. However, the resources saved by a government that does not finance the upfront investment are offset by giving up future revenue flows to the concessionaire. If a PPP can be justified on efficiency grounds, the PPP contract that optimally balances demand risk, user‐fee distortions, and the opportunity cost of public funds has a minimum revenue guarantee and a revenue cap. The optimal contract can be implemented via a competitive auction with reasonable informational requirements. The optimal revenue guarantees, revenue sharing agreements, and auction mechanisms are different from those observed in the real world. In particular, the optimal contract duration is shorter in demand states where the revenue cap binds. These results also have implications for budgetary accounting of PPPs, as they show that their fiscal impact resembles that of public provision, rather than privatization.