Adaptive Build-up and Breakdown of Trust: An Agent Based Computational Approach

This article employs Agent-Based Computational Economics (ACE) to investigate whether, and under what conditions, trust is viable in markets. The emergence and breakdown of trust is modeled in a context of multiple buyers and suppliers. Agents develop trust in a partner as a function of observed loyalty. They select partners on the basis of their trust in the partner and potential profit, with adaptive weights. On the basis of realized profits, they adapt the weight they attach to trust relative to profitability, and their own trustworthiness, modeled as a threshold of defection. Trust and loyalty turn out to be viable under fairly general conditions.     

论社会主义市场经济的三个根本问题

坚持和发展社会主义市场经济,必须紧紧抓住和解决好基本制度、生产目的和资源配置这三个根本问题.这三个根本问题也构成了中国特色社会主义政治经济学的核心内容.在基本制度方面,必须坚持公有制主体地位不能动摇,国有经济主导作用不能动摇;坚持按劳分配为主体、使改革发展成果更多更公平惠及全体人民.在生产目的上,要满足广大人民日益增长、不断升级和个性化的物质文化和生态环境需要.在解放和发展生产力的同时,保证被解放和发展了的生产力归人民所有,走可持续发展道路.在资源配置方面,社会主义国家由于有公有制经济的全力配合,政府对资源配置才能真正发挥“看得见的手”的作用,当然其效果如何还得看这只手有没有遵循经济发展的客观规律.中国特色社会主义追求的是共同富裕,公有制的存在和发展保证了经济发展成果由人民群众共享,从而中国特色社会主义的效率必然是也必须是最广大人民群众的效率,从而这个效率必然是与公平一致的.     

客观性与境域性——道德实在论的收敛

道德实在论是应对道德多元主义而兴起的。它为寻求道德的确定性,收敛到道德的客观性,但这面临着事实和价值之间的矛盾。因而,它又收敛到人类都有关于建立美好社会的愿望的共识,但这种观点不仅面临着理想人以及知识和信仰之间跳跃的问题,而且将其设为目标来追求,还会导致专制和道德虚无主义的困境。只有走出理论思辨,采取局部的实践哲学的方法和根本的存在论境域的方法,才能解决自己的困境。     

Towards a transdisciplinary blueprint to studying bullying

Events related to bullying are so complex that they require a much broader examination than is usually available from a single disciplinary point of view. The purpose of the present paper is to offer new ways of examining this complex phenomenon. We will argue that transdisciplinarity (henceforth TD) could bring a more comprehensive analysis and a deeper understanding to the current state of bullying research. As a way of emphasizing the benefits of a more pluralistic and integrative approach, we will use TD based examples to describe the general context and process we used to develop a new definition of bullying, one that provides a sharper distinction between bullying and general aggression, thus offering the possibility of more targeted intervention strategies. The present paper is divided into three sections, namely, a selected review of the TD literature, an application of TD inspired ideas and tools that examine bullying from a number of interrelated perspectives, and an outline of a conceptual ‘Disciplinary Continuum’, as an example of how TD can be used to examine complex phenomena. Moreover, we will highlight TD’s expanding role in the funding process, as it is increasingly required by granting agencies and governmental ministries as a criterion for universities’ funding. We conclude by outlining ideas for further inquiries.     

Demand for gambling: development and assessment of a gambling purchase task

Self-report purchase tasks are a novel approach examining the reinforcing value of addictive behaviour relative to increasing monetary costs required to access the addictive behaviour (i.e. demand). These measures reveal a positive relationship between the indices of demand and addiction problem severity and can elucidate factors associated with motivation for substance use. Gambling is an addictive behaviour that has not been examined using this paradigm. This study seeks to adapt and examine the purchase task for gambling behaviour. A gambling purchase task was devised that asked individuals how often per month they would gamble at various cover charges. Participants were 73 adults from the community with either gambling disorder (n = 28) or alcohol use disorder (n = 24) or were a healthy control (n = 21). Both the alcohol and gambling purchase tasks were administered. Results demonstrate discriminant validity of the gambling purchase task, as individuals with gambling disorder have significantly greater demand for accessing gambling than other groups. The alcohol purchase task also evidenced discriminant validity in that individuals with alcohol use disorder have significantly greater demand for alcohol than other groups. These findings support the use of the gambling purchase task to assess the demand for gambling.     

研究生培养政策70年:演变逻辑与发展走向

新中国成立70年来，我国研究生培养政策经历了初创起步、推进发展、稳步延伸和调适深化四个发展阶段。在演进逻辑上，凸显出国家需求与市场诉求的权衡性、培养目标注重个人成就与社会发展价值的双维导向、培养质量保障体系趋向质量和效益二维共进等特征。研究生培养政策是个动态发展系统。随着时代的发展和变迁，应在政策制定和发展的动力机制、政策目标的价值导向、政策执行的监督评价及保障决策等方面作出适时调整。     

Because they were there: Access,deliberation, and the mobilization of networks for support

When people need help, what is the process through which they decide whom in their network to turn to? Research on social support has described a process that is deliberative in nature: people determine their needs, assess who in their network has the needed attributes—such as skill, trustworthiness, intimacy, and accessibility—and then activate that tie. Nevertheless, research in behavioral economics and other fields has shown that people make many decisions not deliberatively but intuitively. We examine this possibility in the context of social support by focusing on one factor: accessibility. Although researchers have argued that people weigh the accessibility of potential helpers as they do any other attribute, accessibility may be not only an attribute of the helper but also a condition of the situation. We develop a framework to make this question tractable for survey research and evaluate competing hypotheses using original data on an analytically strategic sample of ∼2000 college students, probing concrete instances of social support. We identify and document not one but three decision processes, reflective, incidental, and spontaneous activation, which differ in the extent to which actors had deliberated on whether to seek help and on whom to approach before activating the tie. We find that while the process was reflective (consistent with existing theory) when skill or trustworthiness played a role, it was significantly less so (consistent with the alternative) when accessibility did. Findings suggest that actors decide whom in their network to mobilize through at least three systematically different processes, two of which are consistent less with either active “mobilization” or explicit “help seeking” than with responsiveness to opportunity and context.     

论《墨子》经济思想中的生态因子及对当代的启迪

墨家的经济思想蕴涵着丰富的生态因子,这一点在其生产观、消费观、赋税观及分配观中这几个领域得到了充分的体现.墨家的这种思想给身处生态困境中的当代人类以深刻的启迪.     

A general class of test statistics for Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis

Van Valen's Red Queen hypothesis states that within a homogeneous taxonomic group the age is statistically independent of the rate of extinction. The case of the Red Queen hypothesis being addressed here is when the homogeneous taxonomic group is a group of similar species. Since Van Valen's work, various statistical approaches have been used to address the relationship between taxon age and the rate of extinction. We propose a general class of test statistics that can be used to test for the effect of age on the rate of extinction. These test statistics allow for a varying background rate of extinction and attempt to remove the effects of other covariates when assessing the effect of age on extinction. No model is assumed for the covariate effects. Instead we control for covariate effects by pairing or grouping together similar species. Simulations are used to compare the power of the statistics. We apply the test statistics to data on Foram extinctions and find that age has a positive effect on the rate of extinction. A derivation of the null distribution of one of the test statistics is provided in the supplementary material.