Efficiency measures of the Chinese commercial banking system using an additive two-stage DEA

Measuring and improving the efficiency of the Chinese commercial banking system has recently attracted increasing interest. Few studies, however, have adopted the two-stage network DEA to explore this issue in the Chinese context. Because the entire operational process of the banking system could be divided into two sub-processes (deposit producing and profit earning), the evaluation of the sub-process efficiencies could be used to assist in identifying the sources of the inefficiency of the entire banking system. In this study, we utilize the network DEA approach to disaggregate, evaluate and test the efficiencies of 16 major Chinese commercial banks during the third round of the Chinese banking reform period (2003–2011) with the variable returns to scale setting and the consideration of undesirable/bad output. The main findings of this study are as follows: (i) the two-stage DEA model is more effective than the conventional black box DEA model in identifying the inefficiency of banking system, and the inefficiency of the Chinese banking system primarily results from the inefficiency of its deposit producing sub-process; (ii) the overall efficiency of the Chinese banking system improves over the study period because of the reform; (iii) the state-owned commercial banks (SOBs) appear to be more overall efficient than the joint-stock commercial banks (JSBs) only in the pre-reform period, and the efficiency difference between the SOBs and the JSBs is reduced over the post-reform period; (iv) the disposal of non-performing loans (NPLs) from the Chinese banking system in general explains its efficiency improvement, and the joint-equity reform of the SOBs specifically increases their efficiencies.     

A CHILD PSYCHOTHERAPIST IN PRIMARY MENTAL HEALTH

This paper outlines the author's application of psychodynamic thinking and approaches to brief therapeutic work with children, adolescents and their families in community mental health settings. It is the author's belief that systemic and narrative therapy insights and techniques combine well with psychoanalysis in the assessment and treatment of many concerns felt and expressed by parents and young people. The therapist's tasks are to listen empathically to clients who are in distress and to explore the clients' beliefs about the origins of their problems, as well as their previously attempted solutions. In proceeding at the family's pace, opportunities arise for facilitating more effective ways of resolving conflict. Clients are often more free than they realise to change their interpretation of their experience, and this has important consequences for the maintenance and solution of problems. Brief therapy seeks to remind clients of their strengths and resources and to share ways to encourage clients to resume effective ways of learning about themselves.     

任务分解式教学法在检测技术实训中的应用

如何提高实践教学的教学质量是高校教育中亟待解决的问题。以安全检测技术实训为例,采用任务分解式教学方法对这一问题进行了探讨,在实训过程中,通过不断增加具体任务难度、分组打擂、优秀组讲解程序等方式,将安全检测技术各个部分内容有机结合起来,从而为实践教学环节提供一些有益的思路。     

Is prenatal sex selection associated with lower female child mortality?

I examine whether prenatal sex selection has substituted postnatal excess female mortality by analysing the dynamics of child sex ratios between 1980 and 2015 using country-level life table data. I decompose changes in child sex ratios into a ‘fertility’ component attributable to prenatal sex selection and a ‘mortality’ component attributable to sex differentials in postnatal survival. Although reductions in numbers of excess female deaths have accompanied increases in missing female births in all countries experiencing the emergence of prenatal sex selection, relative excess female mortality has persisted in some countries but not others. In South Korea, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, mortality reductions favouring girls accompanied increases in prenatal sex selection. In India, excess female mortality was much higher and largely stable as prenatal sex selection emerged, but slight reductions were seen in the 2000s. In China, although absolute measures showed reductions, relative excess female mortality persisted as prenatal sex selection increased.     

Investment communities: Behavioral attitudes and economic dynamics

Using a real-world data set encompassing the daily portfolio holdings and exposures of complex investment funds, we derive a set of quantitative attributes to capture essential behavioral features of fund managers. We find the existence and stability of three investment attitudes, namely the conservative, the reactive, and the pro-active profiles, defining communities that respond differently when facing external shocks. The conservative community has behavioral similarities that tend to decrease due to external shocks, the reactive community members greatly increase their activity level especially during turmoil phases, while delegated investors in the pro-active community are more resilient to turbulence and counterbalance the impact of the events by adjusting their portfolio exposures in advance. We show that exogenous shocks only temporarily perturb the behavioral traits of the communities which then go back to their original states once the distress is embedded.     

Multivariate Return Decomposition: Theory and Implications

In this paper, we propose a model based on multivariate decomposition of multiplicative – absolute values and signs – components of asset returns. In the m-variate case, the marginals for the m absolute values and the binary marginals for the m directions are linked through a 2m-dimensional copula. The approach is detailed in the case of a bivariate decomposition. We outline the construction of the likelihood function and the computation of different conditional measures. The finite-sample properties of the maximum likelihood estimator are assessed by simulation. An application to predicting bond returns illustrates the usefulness of the proposed method.     

错位与适应：学前教育小学化“为何”与“何为”

为了探究利益相关者视角下学前教育小学化产生的原因及其对策,以重心下移与深度聚焦为思路,对Z市X区4名家长和2名老师进行访谈,借助扎根理论,建构出学前教育小学化"错位"与"适应"的双重生态。"错位"诠释了学前教育小学化的"为何",具体表现为"主体错位"和"职责错位"的复杂交错。"适应"解释了学前教育小学化的"何为",具体表现为适应主体是"家长、幼儿园和辅导班的三管齐下";适应策略包括"坚决抵抗、无奈妥协、精明调适和无知得意";适应类型是"预防型和善后型、强迫型和引导型、突击型和持久型、长远型和短视型"的相互融合。     

初次收入分配对我国居民旅游消费影响研究

文章选取初次分配工资分配率、城镇居民基尼系数、各收入阶层旅游消费占比作为分析指标，经分析研究所得结论为：低、中收入阶层旅游消费占比与分配率负相关，分配率所代表的初次收入分配总量性影响对中收入阶层旅游消费影响较大，中、高收入阶层旅游消费占比都与城镇居民基尼系数正相关，其中城镇居民基尼系数代表的初次收入分配结构性影响对高收入阶层旅游消费影响较大；并针对各阶层的特殊性对各收入阶层旅游消费发展提出相应政策建议.     

Difference-based Methods for Truncating the Singular Value Decomposition

Given a noisy time series (or signal), one may wish to remove the noise from the observed series. Assuming that the noise-free series lies in some low-dimensional subspace of rank r, a common approach is to embed the noisy time series into a Hankel trajectory matrix. The singular value decomposition is then used to deconstruct the Hankel matrix into a sum of rank-one components. We wish to demonstrate that there may be some potential in using difference-based methods of the observed series in order to provide guidance regarding the separation of the noise from the signal, and to estimate the rank of the low-dimensional subspace in which the true signal is assumed to lie.     

Cumulative correspondence analysis using orthogonal polynomials

Taguchi's statistic has long been known to be a more appropriate measure of association of the dependence for ordinal variables compared to the Pearson chi-squared statistic. Therefore, there is some advantage in using Taguchi's statistic in the correspondence analysis context when a two-way contingency table consists at least of an ordinal categorical variable. The aim of this paper, considering the contingency table with two ordinal categorical variables, is to show a decomposition of Taguchi's index into linear, quadratic and higher-order components. This decomposition has been developed using Emerson's orthogonal polynomials. Moreover, two case studies to explain the methodology have been analyzed.