孔子宗教思想中的人文理性精神

在从原始宗教的神人未分到周代宗教思想中人文理性精神的初见端倪的过程中,人的理性意识逐渐觉醒,人逐渐从神的控制下摆脱出来。孔子继承和发展了西周以来的宗教思想,提出＂敬鬼神而远之＂这一具有人文理性精神的新命题。正是这种人文理性精神对中国宗教的发展起到了积极作用。当今世界各宗教间的和平及世界和平仍需要人文理性精神。     

Intellectual disabilities,violent conflict and humanitarian assistance: advocacy of the forgotten

This article examines the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities in violent conflict who have been neglected in practice and academia. Such invisibility, combined with the disabling impact of society, their low priority, and the nature of their impairments, results in a disproportionately negative impact of conflict on people with intellectual disabilities. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including humanitarian workers, this article examines their experiences and analyses how much consideration has been given to people with intellectual disabilities in humanitarian assistance policy and practice in light of their increased need and vulnerability. Lack of awareness and recognition of their diverse experiences can result in their needs failing to be adequately met, which compounds their disproportionately negative experience of conflict. It is important to finally start paying attention in order to ensure their inclusion in humanitarian responses.     

喧哗与骚动中的成长危机--论“文革”童年叙事的人文反思

在由“五四”发端的现代童年书写进程中,集中而深刻地表现童年成长危机的是以“文革”为历史背景的童年叙事。这类书写立足于个体意识和生命意识,着意于揭示童年生命在无理性的政治喧哗的历史年代中的成长困境并凸现其内在的骚动和迷乱,从一个天真而又不乏智性的维度深入拓展了关于“文革”的历史反思和主体生成的道德与人性关怀层面。     

Using Fairness Models to Improve Equity in Health Delivery Fleet Management

Inefficiency and inequity are two challenges that plague humanitarian operations and health delivery in resource‐limited regions. Increasing capacity in humanitarian and health delivery supply chains is one option that has the potential to improve equity while maintaining efficiency. For example, the nonprofit organization Riders for Health has worked to increase capacity by providing reliable transportation to health workers in rural parts of sub‐Saharan Africa; with more motorcycle hours at their disposal, health workers can perform more outreach to outlying communities. We develop a model using a family of fairness function to quantify the efficiency and equity of health delivery as capacity is increased via development programs. We present optimal resource allocations under utilitarian, proportionally fair, and egalitarian objectives and extend the model to include dual modes of transport and diminishing returns of subsequent outreach visits. Finally, we demonstrate how to apply our model at a regional level to provide support for humanitarian decision makers such as Riders for Health. We use data from the baseline phase of our evaluation trial of Riders for Health in Zambia to quantify efficiency and equity for one real‐world scenario.     

Supplier Selection for Framework Agreements in Humanitarian Relief

In this study, we consider the supplier selection problem of a relief organization that wants to establish framework agreements (FAs) with a number of suppliers to ensure quick and cost‐effective procurement of relief supplies in responding to sudden‐onset disasters. Motivated by the FAs in relief practice, we focus on a quantity flexibility contract in which the relief organization commits to purchase a minimum total quantity from each framework supplier over a fixed agreement horizon, and, in return, the suppliers reserve capacity for the organization and promise to deliver items according to pre‐specified agreement terms. Due to the uncertainties in demand locations and amounts, it may be challenging for relief organizations to assess candidate suppliers and the offered agreement terms. We use a scenario‐based approach to represent demand uncertainty and develop a stochastic programming model that selects framework suppliers to minimize expected procurement and agreement costs while meeting service requirements. We perform numerical experiments to understand the implications of agreement terms in different settings. The results show that supplier selection decisions and costs are generally more sensitive to the changes in agreement terms in settings with high‐impact disasters. Finally, we illustrate the applicability of our model on a case study.     

Designing Efficient Infrastructural Investment and Asset Transfer Mechanisms in Humanitarian Supply Chains

We analyze the efficacy of different asset transfer mechanisms and provide policy recommendations for the design of humanitarian supply chains. As a part of their preparedness effort, humanitarian organizations often make decisions on resource investments ex ante because doing so allows for rapid response if an adverse event occurs. However, programs typically operate under funding constraints and donor earmarks with autonomous decision‐making authority resting with the local entities, which makes the design of efficient humanitarian supply chains a challenging problem. We formulate this problem in an agency setting with two independent aid programs, where different asset transfer mechanisms are considered and where investments in resources are of two types: primary resources that are needed for providing the aid and infrastructural investments that improve the operation of the aid program in using the primary resources. The primary resources are acquired from earmarked donations. We show that allowing aid programs the flexibility of transferring primary resources improves the efficiency of the system by yielding greater social welfare than when this flexibility does not exist. More importantly, we show that a central entity that can acquire primary resources from one program and sell them to the other program can further improve system efficiency by providing a mechanism that facilitates the transfer of primary resources and eliminates losses from gaming. This outcome is achieved without depriving the individual aid programs of their decision‐making autonomy while maintaining the constraints under which they operate. We find that outcomes with centralized resource transfer but decentralized infrastructural investments by the aid programs are the same as with a completely centralized system (where both resource transfer and infrastructural investments are centralized).     

Buttressing Supply Chains against Floods in Asia for Humanitarian Relief and Economic Recovery

Floods are the most frequent category of disasters worldwide. Among all geographic regions, Asia has suffered the most. While there are several ongoing humanitarian efforts and initiatives, we believe there is a new opportunity to coordinate “last mile” humanitarian efforts in the event of a flood using micro‐retailers. Because micro‐retailers are the “last mile” nodes in traditional retail supply chains in many Asian countries, we propose the use of social enterprise to buttress these supply chains for distribution of essential goods by coordinating with micro‐retailers before and after floods. We also present a stylized model to quantify the benefits of doing so.     

Improving Humanitarian Operations through Technology‐Enabled Collaboration

Humanitarian supply chains involve many different entities, such as government, military, private, and non‐governmental organizations and individuals. Well‐coordinated interactions between entities can lead to synergies and improved humanitarian outcomes. Information technology (IT) tools can help facilitate collaboration, but cost and other barriers have limited their use. We document the use of an IT tool to improve last‐mile supply distribution and data management in one of many camps for internally displaced persons after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and we describe other current uses of technology in camp management. Motivated by these examples and the interest among humanitarian organizations in expanding the use of such tools to facilitate coordination, we introduce a cooperative game theory model and explore insights about the conditions under which multi‐agency coordination is feasible and desirable. We also outline an agenda for future research in the area of technology‐enabled collaboration in the humanitarian sector.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Humanitarian Operations and Crisis Management

The Genesis of this Special Issue came from the Board of the POMS College on Humanitarian Operations and Crisis Management (HO&CM). It was seen as a necessary initiative to define the field and examine research opportunities. This Special Issue shows that humanitarian operations pose challenges for P/OM researchers and practitioners that differ markedly from those of conventional supply chains associated with profitable enterprises. On the basis of the eight articles in this Special Issue, we have described and demonstrated the unique characteristics of the POM/HO&CM interaction. We have also identified those attributes that tend to overlap with conventional aspects of POM. In addition to wanting to be cost effective, the issue of equity fairness is pervasive in humanitarian operations, and so is the need to always base considerations on “last‐mile logistics,” that is, getting aid to those in most need. Research is essential to determine how to train researchers to scout out and map the territory of the real problems. One of the most vexing problems is the lack of robust data in the humanitarian domain which is as richly varied as the types of disasters that can occur.