城市近郊生态环境恶化与生态安全对策--以衡阳市为例

21世纪城市化步伐不断加快,大城市、特大城市以及城市群陆续建立,促进了经济的增长,完善了城市的功能与体系.而城市扩建、改建工程侵占了大量的近郊土地,破坏了原来相对稳定的自然生态系统,削弱了城市近郊生态系统的生态环境功能.城市热岛效应更显突出,生态环境逐渐恶化,自然灾害频频发生,严重的威胁着城市的可持续发展.本文在分析城市化背景下城市外围生态环境恶化的情况下,结合衡阳市的生态环境特点,以及城市化大环境下其外围生态环境的变化情况与趋势,提出一系列实现城市地域可持续发展的措施.     

城市化进程中的热岛效应问题及对策

我国进入工业化、城市化加速发展的新时期,环境危机日益突出。城市热岛效应作为地区环境问题中最为突出的现象之一,使传统城市发展模式走向了困境。解决环境问题和城市化之间矛盾的途径,则是城市可持续发展模式。本文以城市可持续发展为目标,给出了城市化及应对城市热岛效应的对策建议。     

呼和浩特市气温变化与热岛效应分析

利用1915～2012年呼和浩特市气温观测资料的年平均气温、冬季平均气温,分析了呼和浩特市城市热岛效应的年变化特征、季节变化特征,发现呼和浩特市热岛效应有逐年增强的趋势,升幅为0.13℃/10a,城市建设导致自然下垫面结构的改变是热岛效应增加的主要原因.结合呼和浩特实际情况,提出了缓解呼和浩特城市热岛效应的措施.     

论旅游城市城区森林的经营——以桂林市为例

城区森林往往被称为城市的“绿肺”,对改善城市生态环境、缓解城市热岛效应具有重要的作用。不仅如此,对旅游城市而言,城区森林还是一种重要的旅游资源,对城市旅游发挥着重要的作用。本文界定了城区森林的含义,分析了城区森林在旅游城市中的功能与作用,并以世界旅游名城桂林市为例,探讨了城区森林的经营措施,包括：开展城区森林布局总体规划,实行城区森林分类经营;做好城区造林设计,使森林的防护功能与观赏游憩价值统一;采取各种措施增加城区森林覆盖,充分发挥森林的防护功能;采取近自然的森林配置模式,丰富城区森林的生物多样性;加强森林抚育管理,建设城区高效林业。     

云南高原楚雄市城市发展规模与城市热岛效应关系分析

选取城市发展规模要素的指标,运用相关分析法,系统分析楚雄市1990～2009年期间城市规模的发展对其城市热岛强度的影响关系,发现建成区面积、非农业人口与城市热岛效应关系密切。再采用加权综合评价法计算城市发展规模综合指数,建立楚雄市城市发展规模与城市热岛强度的变化趋势图,发现近年来楚雄年热岛强度随着城市规模的发展逐年上升,建议通过树立新的城市发展观、搞好城市生态规划等几个方面来进一步改善楚雄"城市热岛效应"的负面影响。     

关于生态城市建设的思考

生态城市建设是实现社会经济与资源环境良性循环、协调持续发展的一种有效组织形式.本文简要介绍了生态城市的概念,指出了生态城市建设的重大意义,最后提出了在生态城市建设过程中要注意的一些问题.     

绿化与建筑节能

对建筑物所处环境及建筑物本身进行绿化可降低建筑物周围微环境的温度、提高空气相对湿度,改善空气品质,降低噪音危害,从而延长建筑物通过自然通风降温的时间,改善室内空气品质,降低建筑物能耗,减轻"城市热岛效应".     

以区域金融生态建设打造区域竞争优势

一个地区金融生态环境的好坏不仅影响地区货币政策传导、资源配置效率、金融稳定发展,而且决定着该地区对经济金融资源的吸引力,并最终决定区域经济增长的可持续性。文章具体阐述了金融生态对于区域经济的影响作用,分析了目前区域金融生态建设中存在的问题,并提出完善区域金融生态的各项具体措施。     

基于生态模式下的社会主义新农村建设探析

目前我国广大农村传统的粗放型发展模式导致了农村社会、经济、环境、生态的不协调发展,经济发展动力不足,生态承载能力下降,环境的可持续发展受到严峻挑战,严重背离了建设和谐社会主义新农村的初衷。基于生态模式下的社会主义新农村是一个社会-经济-生态整体效益的发展模式。是以生态经济、生态环境、生态制度、生态文化、生态法治为主体依托的发展模式,是建设和谐、可持续发展新农村的理想模式。     

论中国新农村战略规划与生态环境保护的选择

新农村规划是一个系统工程,包括的内容很多,但最主要的是生态人居规划、生态工程规划和生态环境管理规划,脱离了这些,就违背了新农村建设的本意。因此,探讨我国新农村规划体系的基本框架和生态环境保护措施的思路,十分重要。一、生态环境规划是新农村战略规划的重要内涵中国是一个农村人口占多数的大国,农民收入较低,农村生态环境退化问题严重,制约着农村区域发展和农民脱贫致富。中央做出建设社会主义新农村的决策,将改变中国农村,也将改变中国未来。搞好新农村建设,科学规划是前提。在规划中,一定要编制好新农村环境规划,探索解决农村生态…     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

Bayesian estimation of duration models: An application of the multiperiod probit model

The multiperiod probit model is presented and Bayesian estimation using the Gibbs sampler with data augmentation is described. As an empirical illustration, the multiperiod probit model is then used to estimate a duration model using employment duration data for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Bayesian estimation with unobserved heterogeneity is shown to be a simple extension of estimation of a duration model with no unobserved heterogeneity. More importantly, perhaps, some numerical problems encountered by other authors using Maximum Likelihood are avoided.I would like to thank M. Baker, G. Koop, A. Melino and D. Poirier for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank M. Baker for providing his data.     

Scenarios and creativity: Thinking in new boxes

To be creative and make change happen, leaders must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest, using the popular American expression. After all, the space outside the box is infinitely expansive. Moreover, there can be no guarantee that a solution to the problem will be found. The answer: ‘Think in new boxes.’ This requires developing the right new box; in other words, useful new models, a helpful new approach to a problem. That is the real art of practical creativity. This short article outlines the approach (Thinking in New Boxes) and its application to classic scenario planning with a few examples. The authors also present the ‘Expressway to Scenarios’, an approach that wins in impact and practicality what it loses in deep analysis, by having top executives involved in key steps.     

On the Role of Paradigms in Understanding Economic Globalization

Any adequate analysis of economic globalization necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization. This paper is based on the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It argues that any view expressed with respect to economic globalization is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization which correspond to the four broad worldviews. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of economic globalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of economic globalization, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for each paradigm to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms.     

A Humean theory of choice of which rationality may be one consequence

For the reader who considers economic theory of choice as a special case of a more general theory of action, Hume's discussion of the determinants of action in the Treatise of Human Nature (1739?–?40), in the Enquiry on Human Understanding (1748) and in the Dissertation on Passions (1757) deserves attention. However, according to some modern commentators, Hume does not seem to have given any evidence that would favour what nowadays we would consider as the kind of rationality involved in modern theories of rational choice. On the contrary, this paper arrives at the conclusion that consistency between preferences and choice, like the usual properties of completeness and transitivity, may be considered as outcomes of a mental process, described by means of a decision algorithm that aims to represent Hume's theory of choice.     

The concept of freedom and its relation to economic development--a critical appreciation of the work of Amartya Sen

Following a brief review of the conception of freedom as employedin economic discourse, this paper focuses on the evolution ofthe concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen. It tracesthe development of Sen's thought from the capability analysisof the late 1970s to his more recent separation of freedom intoits opportunity and process aspects. While broadly appreciativeof Sen's development of the concept of positive freedom, thepaper identifies some difficulties arising from his definitionof capability as a set of options as well as from his separationof the opportunity and process aspects of freedom. Aspects ofthe relationship between Sen's conception of freedom and thatof Marx are discussed briefly in the context of Sen's recentdiscussion of the market as a source of freedom.     

How chaebol restructuring after the 1997 crisis has affected corporate decision and performance in Korea: debt financing,ownership structure,and investment

ABSTRACT

Korean chaebol firms, characterized by excessive debt financing and overinvestment, experienced restructuring after the 1997 crisis. By reducing debt financing and thus overinvestment, they tried to reorganize financing structure and ownership structure. Chaebols’ debt reduction turns out to have improved performance. However, polarization between chaebol and non-chaebol firms has become more significant. Even after the crisis, firms that give higher cash flows to a controlling shareholder take more capital investment, indicating that agency problems still exist within chaebols. Chaebol-affiliated firms continue to be more active in R&D than non-chaebol firms. However, the pattern is limited to the group of top 10 chaebols after the crisis.

Abbreviations: KFTC: Korea Fair Trade Commission     

Types of technology

Technology is a concept rife with confusion. Here, I argue that technologies can be distinguished as a combination of type of producer and an idealized artefact life history. Using this definition, a number of technologies are identified. The first technology historically, in the Protostomes, was the production of individual or family dwellings. Next came objects such as spider webs for trapping prey. Stigmergy followed, with the social insects, as a collective endeavour to construct a mega-structure using simple rules of accretion. Some birds and primates began to make tools, or simple technological objects whose function is closely related to their form. Humans are distinguished by their ability to make machines. Traditional technology took place once people voluntarily organised into groups with specialised knowledge to produce more complex objects and structures. Monumental objects like ceremonial pyramids came with the command economies of the early agrarian societies, which also resulted in a new category of artefact, the network. Finally, with modern civilizations came ad hoc accretion, or population-level adding-on, to make truly complex technological systems. Developing a theoretical framework within which artefacts, production processes and ways of interacting with them are identified should help the study of technology to become more scientific.