A new tool for urban governance or just rhetoric? The case of participatory budgeting in Taipei City

Increasing interest in participatory budgeting has been observed in local governments around the world. This paper stresses direct citizen participation in the budgeting process leads to good governance, deepens democracy and improves social justice, while also highlighting some challenges in its efficiency and effectiveness. Unlike participatory budgeting, the Sub-borough Chiefs Forum is a community-based representative democratic mechanism; it could be regarded as a form of participatory budgeting in a broad sense. If so, then did the Taipei programme simply duplicate the goals of the Forum or lead to a better governance by making up for the inadequacies of the Chiefs Forum? To find out whether the Taipei participatory budgeting programme made a difference, we carried out qualitative and quantitative comparisons of projects passed under the participatory budgeting process and at the Forum. We also interviewed several participatory budgeting participants and sub-borough chiefs. The findings suggested that participatory budgeting and the Forum generated different proposals and budget requests, and the Taipei programme supplemented the shortcomings of the Forum and therefore led to deeper civic engagement and better urban governance.     

Latent Class Analysis of Gambling Activities in a Sample of Young Swiss Men: Association with Gambling Problems,Substance Use Outcomes,Personality Traits and Coping Strategies

The study aimed to identify different patterns of gambling activities (PGAs) and to investigate how PGAs differed in gambling problems, substance use outcomes, personality traits and coping strategies. A representative sample of 4989 young Swiss males completed a questionnaire assessing seven distinct gambling activities, gambling problems, substance use outcomes, personality traits and coping strategies. PGAs were identified using latent class analysis (LCA). Differences between PGAs in gambling and substance use outcomes, personality traits and coping strategies were tested. LCA identified six different PGAs. With regard to gambling and substance use outcomes, the three most problematic PGAs were extensive gamblers, followed by private gamblers, and electronic lottery and casino gamblers, respectively. By contrast, the three least detrimental PGAs were rare or non-gamblers, lottery only gamblers and casino gamblers. With regard to personality traits, compared with rare or non-gamblers, private and casino gamblers reported higher levels of sensation seeking. Electronic lottery and casino gamblers, private gamblers and extensive gamblers had higher levels of aggression-hostility. Extensive and casino gamblers reported higher levels of sociability, whereas casino gamblers reported lower levels of anxiety–neuroticism. Extensive gamblers used more maladaptive and less adaptive coping strategies than other groups. Results suggest that gambling is not a homogeneous activity since different types of gamblers exist according to the PGA they are engaged in. Extensive gamblers, electronic and casino gamblers and private gamblers may have the most problematic PGAs. Personality traits and coping skills may predispose individuals to PGAs associated with more or less negative outcomes.     

《慕莱堂诗文征存》和秋寿南、秋瑾的诗词

根据秋寿南在《乡试录》中的记载,他的曾祖秋学礼曾著《补斋文集》《仅礼节读》两种,另有《补斋图册》一种;他的祖父秋家丞著有《八一编》行世;他的父亲秋嘉禾没有著作。这些著作中,只有秋学礼的《补斋文集》流传下来,其它都已流失。最近,又从《晚晴簃诗汇》中发现了一首秋学礼的诗,从《慕莱堂诗文征存》中发现了一首秋寿南的诗,这为研究秋家的家史和秋家的文风提供了新的资料。     

点模式指纹匹配算法研究与实现

指纹匹配是实现指纹识别的重要环节,针对如何提高识别率、减少算法复杂度,介绍了一种点模式的指纹匹配算法。其优点是:将匹配分为两步进行,减少了拒判时间;初匹配利用了细节点间的局部结构关系,既克服了图像的平移和旋转也得到了更精确的坐标校准参数;二次匹配阶段,整合多种判决条件作为识别的依据,提高了识别率。其实验结果表明,该算法复杂度低,识别率较高,有较强实用价值。     

Trends in marijuana and other illicit drug use among college students: results from 4 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study surveys: 1993-2001

The authors examined changes in college students' illicit drug use, patterns of polydrug use, and the relationship between students' ages of initiation of substance use and later use of marijuana and other illicit drugs between 1993 and 2001. Data from 119 US colleges and universities in the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study were used in the study. They found significant increases in percentages of students' use of marijuana in the past 30 days (from 13% to 17%), past year (from 23% to 30%), and lifetime (from 41% to 47%) between 1993 and 2001, with most of the increase occurring between 1993 and 1997. Past 30-day use of other illicit drugs increased from 4% to 7% and past year use increased from 11% to 14%. More than 98% of marijuana and other illicit drug users used another substance. They also either smoked, were binge drinkers, and/or were users of another illicit drug. Drug prevention programs should emphasize heavy alcohol use and smoking and should start when students are in high school or earlier.     

Bayesian semiparametric inference for the accelerated failure-time model

Bayesian semiparametric inference is considered for a loglinear model. This model consists of a parametric component for the regression coefficients and a nonparametric component for the unknown error distribution. Bayesian analysis is studied for the case of a parametric prior on the regression coefficients and a mixture-of-Dirichlet-processes prior on the unknown error distribution. A Markov-chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is developed to compute the features of the posterior distribution. A model selection method for obtaining a more parsimonious set of predictors is studied. The method adds indicator variables to the regression equation. The set of indicator variables represents all the possible subsets to be considered. A MCMC method is developed to search stochastically for the best subset. These procedures are applied to two examples, one with censored data.     

论东女国的经济生活

东女国是沟通唐朝与吐蕃之间的政治和经济联系的重要桥梁,当然,在唐朝和吐蕃政治、经济、宗教、社会习俗等综合因素的影响下,加之东女国自身社会生产力的发展变化,东女国的经济生活逐渐形成了自己的民族特色,而这种民族特色不仅被保留了下来,而且作为一种文化资源和旅游品牌,它在振兴西部经济的伟大战略中必将发挥着越来越突出的"鼓手"作用.     

Culture‐Inclusive Theories of Self and Social Interaction: The Approach of Multiple Philosophical Paradigms

In view of the fact that culture‐inclusive psychology has been eluded or relatively ignored by mainstream psychology, the movement of indigenous psychology is destined to develop a new model of man that incorporates both causal psychology and intentional psychology as suggested by Vygotsky (1927). Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” (Shweder et al., 1998), the Mandala Model of Self (Hwang, 2011a,b) and Face and Favor Model (Hwang, 1987, 2012) were constructed to represent the universal mechanisms of self and social interaction that can be applied to any culture; both models can be used as conceptual frameworks for analyzing mentalities of people in any given culture. Taking research works from Foundations of Chinese Psychology: Confucian Social Relation as exemplars (Hwang, 2012), this article illustrates how to construct culture‐inclusive theories of Confucianism by multiple philosophical paradigms. The mechanism of culture‐inclusive theory can be applied to explain qualitative research findings on lifeworld events of people in a particular society. It can also be utilized to predict results of quantitative research conducted to verify theoretical propositions in the scientific microworld by empirical methods.