Global Maize Trade and Food Security: Implications from a Social Network Model

In this study, we developed a social network model of the global trade of maize: one of the most important food, feed, and industrial crops worldwide, and critical to food security. We used this model to analyze patterns of maize trade among nations, and to determine where vulnerabilities in food security might arise if maize availability was decreased due to factors such as diversion to nonfood uses, climatic factors, or plant diseases. Using data on imports and exports from the U.N. Commodity Trade Statistics Database for each year from 2000 to 2009 inclusive, we summarized statistics on volumes of maize trade between pairs of nations for 217 nations. There is evidence of market segregation among clusters of nations; with three prominent clusters representing Europe, Brazil and Argentina, and the United States. The United States is by far the largest exporter of maize worldwide, whereas Japan and the Republic of Korea are the largest maize importers. In particular, the star‐shaped cluster of the network that represents U.S. maize trade to other nations indicates the potential for food security risks because of the lack of trade these other nations conduct with other maize exporters. If a scenario arose in which U.S. maize could not be exported in as large quantities, maize supplies in many nations could be jeopardized. We discuss this in the context of recent maize ethanol production and its attendant impacts on food prices elsewhere worldwide.     

混合HOGA-SVM财务风险预警模型实证研究

目前涉及遗传算法与支持向量机相结合的预测模型中,遗传算法基本上采用的是标准算法.但是在对全局函数的优化中,一般的遗传算法容易陷入局部最优,从而降低遗传算法收敛速度和搜索精度,进而影响财务风险预警模型的精度与速度.基于此,提出了基于混合全局优化正交遗传算法(HOGA)和支持向量机(SVM)的财务风险预警模型(HOGA-SVM),通过使用混合全局优化正交遗传算法连同支持向量机来改进支持向量机进行财务风险预警的效果.结果显示,提出的模型不仅提高了财务风险预警的准确率和速度,而且模型的两类分类错误率(尤其是第一类分类错误率)相对其他模型也有了明显下降.未来的工作可以把模型的应用扩大到多分类的财务风险预警问题中.     

构建人类命运共同体：破解全球治理失灵难题的必由之路

以“构建人类命运共同体”为核心价值的全球治理的中国方案,是全球性风险日益增多和全球治理日益陷入失灵困境双重压力之下的理论自觉,是以习近平同志为核心的党中央对全球治理理论及其实践的发展历程、宝贵经验大跨度回顾总结的科学性和创造性结论,蕴涵着广阔的历史背景、丰富的思想内涵和博大的中国智慧。其以人类命运共同体意识实现对民族国家主权意识的超越,破解强权国家主权意识日益膨胀难题;以人类命运共同体构想融合传统规则治理和关系治理,提升全球治理效能;倡导“共商共建共享”理念,以合作共赢为核心构建新型国际关系,以民族国家主权平等为基础推动公正合理的全球治理新体制的形成,为全球治理走出失灵困境提供了理论支撑和现实指引。     

“虚拟社会”伦理初探

随着现代科技的发展,特别是信息高速公路的建设,必将产生一种新的世界性的社会组织形式——“虚拟社会”。随着虚拟社会的产生,对传统的社会道德观念和规范提出了挑战,为当前道德建设提出许多难题。本文试对这一挑战与难题进行探讨。     

关于我国未来规划体系改进问题的思考

从世界范围看 ,干预主义抬头。作为政府干预的重要手段 ,规划越来越为市场化国家重视 ,并形成了具有一定内在联系的规划体系 ;从国内看 ,对于过去 5 0年左右的规划历史过程中存不存在规划体系和当前应该确立怎样的规划体系的问题值得关注。我们试图进行一些探索性的思考 ,从规划体系的含义入手 ,在分析了我国现行规划体系存在的缺陷的基础上 ,提出未来规划体系的改进原则和改进方向。     

有关《全球同源词》的一些问题

20世纪末,本特森和茹伦发表了《全球同源词》。他们在32种语言里找到了27个原始语词根来证明世界语言一源论假说。本文主要讨论了《全球同源词》一书中存在的一些问题,如词义分化严重,构拟形式过短,语音对应没有约束等,并因此认为世界语言一源论假说仍然值得怀疑。     

人类命运共同体观念在全球化时代的意义

“人类命运共同体”的理念得到大量事实的支持:人类在同一个全球生态环境下生存,气候变化带来的各种自然灾害会影响地球上的所有国家;人类活动的全球化带来了更多的全球性问题,如难民问题、毒品走私、恐怖主义问题、传染性疾病等;全球化背景下人类命运的共同性更深刻地显示在经济的全球化上。在一个统一的世界经济中,各国经济一损俱损,一荣俱荣。当前的一些国际经济动态提醒,理论上的人类命运共同体与现实中对人类命运共同体的认知是有距离的。现实中,存在着阻碍人类命运共同体构想实现的诸多因素,如经济利益、安全利益、战略利益以及意识形态等。因此,要真正实现“人类命运共同体”的构想,仍然任重而道远。     

Making the Poor Pay for the Rich: Capital Account Liberalization and Reserve Accumulation in the Developing World

Since the 1990s emerging market and developing countries (EMDCs) have been accumulating massive amounts of international reserves. The fundamental factor behind this reserve hoarding is financial in nature rather than trade-related, stemming from the widespread adoption of capital account liberalization in EMDCs, the resulting exposure to heightened financial volatility, and the consequent need to accumulate reserves as a self-insurance against potential disruptions in capital flows. Precautionary reserve hoarding, however, follows a circular logic that not only imposes heavy opportunity costs on EMDCs but also defeats the very purpose of capital account liberalization. When EMDCs accumulate reserves to hedge against capital account shocks, they are essentially recycling privately incurred short-term capital inflows into publicly incurred capital outflows, engaging in a reverse carry-trade that neither makes any economic sense nor results in any net transfer of financial resources from abroad. The net effect of this circular logic behind financial openness and precautionary reserve accumulation is a regressive and inequitable shifting of the costs of financial volatility from richer to poorer countries.     

Liberalism(s) and the Critical Securitization of Development Debate

The securitization of development theme has developed substantially since the late 1990s within the critical global governance literature. To varying degrees, contributors to this debate argue that a liberal global governance complex links the discourses of security and development in what is described as the ‘security–development nexus’, such that the South is conceived as an international security threat. Whilst the security–development nexus itself has been thoroughly explored, the use of the central concept of liberalism has not. This paper addresses this issue through demarcating and critiquing the three readings of liberalism relevant to the securitization of development debate. Identifying and elucidating the three distinct strands of liberalism enable this paper to identify several weaknesses within the debate and propose a number of amendments. This includes proposing that the liberal discourse of global governance reflects complexity rather than consensus and that the centrality of ‘liberalism’ is at the expense of a robust investigation into how the structural power of global capitalism underpins the security–development nexus.