论计算机信息及计算机信息交易——美国《统一计算机信息交易法》与美国《统一商法典》相关概念和规则的比较

1930年代,哥伦比亚大学卢埃林认识到,工业革命使工业产品成为社会财富的主要载体,需要新的合同法规则以适应新的经济.其结果就是美国<统一商法典>第2编的制定,该法的核心是"货物买卖".1990年代,信息革命的产生及深入发展,使信息和信息服务成为经济的核心,美国<统一计算机信息交易法>应运而生.该法的核心是"计算机信息许可".尽管存在对该法的诸多批评,该法仍具革命意义,并已在美国马里兰州和弗吉尼亚州实施近十年.我国应尽快建立以信息为标的交易法律制度,对信息进行明确的界定,并以此为基础,建立大众市场许可、信息担保、电子自助等制度.     

Some Cautions on the Measurement of User Information Satisfaction*

User information satisfaction (UIS) is important because of its potential effects on MIS department goals, quality of user work life, and extent of voluntary usage of systems. Reliable measurement of UIS is important for providing evaluative information for both researchers and practitioners. This study used 92 managers and executives as subjects to compare the test/retest reliability of a widely used, 13-scale UIS instrument together with four summary questions under experimental and control conditions. The summary questions behaved more reliably than the detailed questions for all groups, perhaps because of problems with scale units and origins and with item heterogeneity. This suggests that researchers need more reliable measures of UIS and that practitioners need to exercise caution when collecting and interpreting UIS scores.     

An examination of the role of online social media in journalists’ source mix

Using telephone surveys of business/financial journalists in the United States (n = 200), this research investigates the agenda-building role of social media content in journalists’ work. Understanding that more non-public relations content from user-generated and social network sites, like YouTube and Twitter, are fast becoming resources for journalists to get story ideas, break scandals, and find sources, we began this scholarly work to determine the frequency of such uses of social media. Overall, findings indicate very little use of social media by these business journalists. Results and implications for public relations practitioners are discussed in detail.     

面向未来的埃及教育改革

埃及实行免费教育体制,长期和持续的国家投入保证了教育在大众中间的普及,使埃及教育长期在阿拉伯国家和非洲地区处于领先地位。但随着全球化的日益深入以及埃及国内经济形势的变化,单纯依靠政府投入越来越不能满足人民群众对高质量教育服务的需求。埃及教育主管部门根据形势发展的迫切要求,一方面大力推进教育体制改革,力行非中央化的政策,在教育投入和管理上,加大社会力量参与的力度,加强了教育基础设施建设,提高了教师待遇;另一方面用先进的信息技术手段改造传统教育模式,并在教学过程中引入问责制度,保证教育质量不断提高,使其更好地服务于社会经济的发展。     

信息技术与高中数学课程整合探究

信息技术与数学课程整合已成为必然趋势,各种教学辅助软件的出现使教师应接不暇。数学软件Maple凭借其简单的操作和强大的功能等优势被越来越多的数学教师作为辅助教学软件。本文用数学实验的方法介绍了Maple在高中数学教学中的几个应用实例,并对信息技术与课程整合与传统教学法之间的优缺点进行了比较。     

Measuring the health patterns of the ‘mixed/multiple’ ethnic group in Britain: data quality problems,reporting issues,and implications for policy

The ‘mixed’ group, officially recognised in the 2001 Census, is one of the most rapidly growing ethnic groups in Britain. Although ‘mixed’ categorisation was added to ethnic coding in NHS datasets, our knowledge of health patterns for this population is meagre. Data quality problems remain a key obstacle, including poor reproducibility of the data and constraints on reporting due to sparse data bias. The consequent minimal and indicative evidence base has focused mainly on risky health behaviours, mental health and generic measures of self-rated health, as it has in the U.S.A. and Canada. There is negligible information on the main underlying causes of death, such as neoplasms, heart disease and stroke. Consideration should be given to pooling data across multiple years of health and general purpose surveys to enable reporting for the four ‘mixed’ categories and adjustment for mediating factors and relevant confounders, such as measures of socio-economic status.     

Estimates of subgroup treatment effects in overall nonsignificant trials: To what extent should we believe in them?

In drug development, it sometimes occurs that a new drug does not demonstrate effectiveness for the full study population but appears to be beneficial in a relevant subgroup. In case the subgroup of interest was not part of a confirmatory testing strategy, the inflation of the overall type I error is substantial and therefore such a subgroup analysis finding can only be seen as exploratory at best. To support such exploratory findings, an appropriate replication of the subgroup finding should be undertaken in a new trial. We should, however, be reasonably confident in the observed treatment effect size to be able to use this estimate in a replication trial in the subpopulation of interest. We were therefore interested in evaluating the bias of the estimate of the subgroup treatment effect, after selection based on significance for the subgroup in an overall “failed” trial. Different scenarios, involving continuous as well as dichotomous outcomes, were investigated via simulation studies. It is shown that the bias associated with subgroup findings in overall nonsignificant clinical trials is on average large and varies substantially across plausible scenarios. This renders the subgroup treatment estimate from the original trial of limited value to design the replication trial. An empirical Bayesian shrinkage method is suggested to minimize this overestimation. The proposed estimator appears to offer either a good or a conservative correction to the observed subgroup treatment effect hence provides a more reliable subgroup treatment effect estimate for adequate planning of future studies.     

The role of social and cognitive factors in individual gambling: An empirical study on college students

Most of the studies on the determinants of individual gambling behaviour rely on cognitive theories. In our study, we argue that, besides cognitive factors, several social factors might play an important role as well. We analyse data from an ad hoc webmail survey conducted on about 2000 undergraduate students enrolled in a large public university in the Northern Italy in the academic year 2012–13. Using a variety of statistical techniques (standard regression models, boosted regression trees and structural equations models), we show that social variables affect both participation in gambling in the past year and latent gambling propensity. In particular, controlling for several proxies for individual cognitive ability and understanding of probability, gambling propensity is positively affected by the degree of gambling in the social surrounding (parents, peers, neighbourhood) and the acceptability of gambling activities to the individual. Moreover, in our sample of college students the role of social factors appears to be larger than that of cognitive factors, and this is consistent across different types of models and specifications.     

Inappropriate Comparisons: The LGB Population's Missing Reference Group

ABSTRACT

Given that many professional organizations emphasize the need for comparing assessment results to appropriate reference groups in their codes of ethics, we consider this practice through an ecological perspective as it applies to the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) population. The purpose of norming and types of assessment bias is discussed with respect to LGB population, which frequently lack specific norming data. The authors discuss whether the LGB population has characteristics similar to other commonly normed for groups and explore how group-shared constructs such as minority stress and internalized homophobia may introduce bias and affect the validity of assessments. A social anxiety assessment as well as a personality disorder inventory are examined for bias as case examples explaining how these assessments may exhibit bias when used with the LGB population. Increases in validity and effects on treatment planning are discussed as benefits of providing LGB-specific norms. Risks of providing these norms, such as minimizing subgroup differences and possibly increasing the risk of discrimination are also addressed before providing clinicians with recommendations as to how they may minimize the risk of bias in their assessment process.