Conflicts and contestations. Rural populations’ perspectives on the second homes phenomenon

In response to demands to restructure and diversify their economies, many rural communities have welcomed the expanding phenomenon of second homes. However, while the second home owners bring new resources to the host communities, the literature also suggests that large second home populations in rural communities provide fertile ground for a number of economic, social and cultural conflicts and contestations. The present paper analyses the views of the local rural populations on the second home phenomenon, with particular attention to variation in these views, both within and between the rural communities (municipalities). The analysis uses material from the survey City, countryside, second homes 2008, which was conducted among a large-scale and representative sample of the population in Norwegian rural second home municipalities. The first section of the paper addresses the rural populations’ stance towards the second home phenomenon, both in general and as it unfolds in their own vicinity. Results show generally positive views on second home development; however, the analysis identifies a substantial minority which is negative to the second home expansion. Nevertheless, the second section shows that even those rurals who are negative towards further developments of second homes largely report harmonious social relationships with the second home population that is already present. Third, the paper presents and discusses a multivariate logistic regression model to analyse how different segments of the rural population vary in their views on second home phenomena. Here, results suggest differences at both micro and macro levels: the local rural elites, in particular those with direct economic interests in the second home sector, are most positive towards further development. On the municipality level, resistance towards second homes is stronger in municipalities with a high density of second homes. Nevertheless, a high growth rate in the number of second homes, due to high investments, seems to increase local support.     

Modeling Reputation as a Time‐Series: Evaluating the Risk of Purchase Decisions on eBay*

Reputation systems based on buyer feedback play an important role in today's online markets. In this article, we provide a rigorous methodology to establish a relationship between a seller's feedback history and risk of default. We validate this method against eBay's reputation system, using a dataset of terminated users (Not‐A‐Registered‐User or NARU) and the feedback left for them by buyers. By treating feedback rating data as a function of time, we characterize the tendency of change in seller feedback ratings in order to predict the behavior of a seller. We find that NARU sellers have significantly more negative feedback in their final weeks. Applying functional principal component analysis and classification tree methods, we find that when projecting the feedback data to an appropriate space, NARU and non‐NARU sellers can be distinguished at better than 92% accuracy. We use this to provide a quantitative mechanism for evaluating the risk of trading with a seller who has less than perfect feedback, and offer advice on how much a buyer should offer to pay, given an asking price on a commodity item and a seller's feedback history.     

Estimating Social Influences from Social Networking Sites—Articulated Friendships versus Communication Interactions

Despite the ubiquity of social networking sites, the online social networking industry is in search of effective marketing strategies to better profit from their established user base. Social media marketing strategies build on the premise that the social network of online users can be predicted and social influences among online users can be estimated. However, the existence of various heterogeneous social interactions on social networking sites presents a challenge for social network prediction and social influence estimation. In this article we draw upon the literatures on self‐presentation on social networking sites and signaling in online social networking to categorize six heterogeneous online social interactions on social networking sites into two types—articulated friendships and communication interactions. This article provides empirical evidence for the differences between articulated friendships and communication interactions and the corresponding articulated and communication networks. In order to compare the impacts of the social influences based on these two networks, we utilize support vector machines to build a classifier to predict virtual community membership and we further estimate the marginal effects of these social influences using a two‐stage probit least squares method. We find significant explanatory power of social influences in predicting virtual community membership. Although the communication network is much sparser than the articulated network, social influences based on the communication network achieve similar performance as the articulated network. These findings provide important implications for social media marketing as well as the management of virtual communities.     

后冷战时期美国与伊斯兰世界冲突的文化根源

后冷战时期,以美国为首的基督教世界与伊斯兰世界冲突中的文化因素体现在三大方面:其一,基督教与伊斯兰教宗教文化观的对立;其二,西方语境下基督教世界对伊斯兰世界的文化偏见;其三,以美国为首的西方霸权体系下伊斯兰世界以政治伊斯兰为主要形式的反美主义。由于以宗教为核心的文化无法消逝,以美国为首的西方世界与伊斯兰世界的文化冲突必将长期存在。     

探析高职应用文写作的教学方法

应用文在人们日常生活中使用广泛,其写作具有较强的实践性。在新时代的背景下,应用文已成为现代经济发展的重要工具。如何教授高职学生灵活掌握应用文的写作,既是当前教师所要思考的问题,又是社会认可学生的基本要求之一。规范使用应用文已成为高职生应具备的一项基本能力与基本技能。     

任务型教学法在高职英语教学中的应用初探

文章从任务型教学法的概念,实施原则两方面分析了其在大学英语教学中可行性与先进性,阐明了在以就业为导向的高职教育办学方针下,任务型教学所能带来的教学效果。     

立足区域旅游要求的高职旅游英语口语教学设计

作者立足西安区域旅游实际及自身旅游从业经验和教学经验,凝炼高职旅游英语教学设计指导理念和思路,期望与其他同行共同探讨促进西安高职旅游专业学生英语口语能力提高的教学方法。     

浅议非计算机专业“计算机网络”课程教学改革

计算机网络的广泛应用使之成为一些非计算机专业学生的一门重要课程。如何正确地对非计算机专业开展计算机网络课程的教学？文章结合陕西青年职业学院计算机网络课程改革的实践,从教学内容的实用性、教学手段的多样性、实训教学的重要性等几个方面展开了探讨和研究。     

案例教学法在经济法课程中的运用

案例教学法因其教学效果显著,得到了教育和培训机构的重视。首先介绍了案例教学法的一般知识和经济法课程的特点,然后深入讨论了案例教学法在经济法教学中的作用和具体应用,给出了具体实施的步骤,并总结了应当注意的问题。     

分级分类课堂多元化教学评价体系的研究

以多元智力理论和建构主义理论为指导,结合大学英语教学改革本身的特点和要求,构建了多元化教学评价体系。同时,通过学生档案袋、问卷调查、访谈、教师记录单等方式,在烟台大学256名本科生中进行了教学评价体系的实验研究。结果表明,新型评价体系有利于培养学生的自主学习能力和提高英语综合应用能力,便于教师调控教学策略且保证了教学改革的顺利进行。