Discourse and practice of participatory flood risk management in Belfast,UK

The introduction of the Floods Directive signals a move from flood protection towards flood risk management in the European Union. Public participation is highlighted in the Floods Directive as being instrumental to effective implementation of this new approach. This study utilised document analysis, non-participant observation, a questionnaire survey, and interviews to evaluate the discourse and practice of participation in the implementation of the Floods Directive in Belfast, United Kingdom. Flood risk management processes in Belfast are found to be high on participatory rhetoric but low on meaningful engagement. The participatory process is lacking in transparency, does not encourage the active participation of interested parties and has not been clearly communicated to key publics. Opportunities to increase meaningful public participation in the process remain underutilised, and the establishment of local flood forums has provided little opportunity for meaningful engagement. Some actions of governance agencies could be best characterised as facilitating the responsibilisation of risk and are designed to manage risk to agencies rather than address flooding issues.     

积极推动辽宁与台湾地区本科教育交流与合作

近年来,随着中外以及海峡两岸教育交流合作的加强,中国本科教育国际化进程飞速发展。辽宁作为中国北方的经济和教育大省应顺应这个国际化潮流,加强与台湾高校的教育交流合作。通过介绍辽宁与台湾本科教育交流合作的背景和现状,阐述了辽宁与台湾本科教育合作与发展中存在的问题,并提出了相应的对策和建议,以期促进辽宁与台湾本科教育交流与合作向更加广度和深度发展     

Ka频段双模航空客舱宽带卫星通信系统总体设计

针对民航市场对客舱宽带卫星通信的迫切需求，提出了一种基于Ka频段高通量卫星的双模解决方案。研究了系统设计的诸多方面，包括卫星资源选择、网络结构、技术体制和适航性。详细介绍了机载设备的组成和双模工作原理，分析了几个与设计实现密切相关的技术指标。方案设计和技术指标分析结果对实际工程应用有一定的参考价值。     

浅谈在国际传播中的议程设置

International Communication plays an important role in our society. Agenda setting theory emerges from communications studies and focuses on mass media influence on setting political agenda.The theory explains the correlation between the rate at which media cover a story and the extent that people think that this story is important. The media has become a strong barrier of communication between families and the outside world.     

The Effect of Word-of-Mouth Communication on Stock Holdings and Trades: Empirical Evidence From an Emerging Market

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between investors’ satisfaction and intention and word-of-mouth communication. This study contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between investor behavior and word-of-mouth communication. Many studies are related to investors’ participation and individual investors’ asset allocation decisions that are instigated by their social community via word-of-mouth communication whereas this study directly investigates the relationship between investment satisfaction and intention and word-of-mouth communication. We emphasize how many factors are considered when making satisfactory investment decisions. Our results confirm the strong relationship between the satisfaction and intention of investors and word-of-mouth communication. This finding may be useful to regulators, investors and managers who seek to establish effective rules for stock holdings and trade.     

COMMUNICATION ABOUT FUTURE POLICY RATES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: A SURVEY

We discuss the theoretical rationale for central bank communication about future policy rates, either as part of inflation targeting or in the form of forward guidance. We also summarize both actual central bank communication about future policy rates and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these types of communication. We argue that there is a disconnect between the theory and practice of forward guidance, as theory assumes commitment on the part of the central bank, while in practice central banks generally do not commit. Future theoretical research on forward guidance should therefore take the absence of commitment by central banks into account.     

The development of integrated marketing communications at the British General Post Office, 1931–39

In the 1930s, the General Post Office (GPO) in Britain became one of the nation’s most innovative pioneers of marketing communication. Following criticism of the organisation in the 1920s for its conservative use of publicity, the GPO embarked upon a series of creative publicity campaigns that applied, amongst other methods, advertising, public relations, promotions, cinema, events and artistic posters. Through an overview of its publicity, and through a narrative of three case-studies, this article argues that one of the most important innovations of the GPO was its integration of marketing communication, both in terms of techniques used and in relation to its emphasis in promoting the organisation and the services it provided.     

Helping behavior in a virtual crisis situation: effects of safety awareness and crisis communication

Incident evaluations show that bystanders tend to help: they do not wait for professionals to arrive, but act as required by the situation at hand. In the present study, we investigated how safety awareness (induced before an accident happened) and providing a course of action by emergency services affect helping behavior after witnessing a virtual accident with two victims. The main task of the participants was to arrive at a job interview in time. Safety awareness was manipulated by the specific organization they went to: either promoting safe traffic or healthy living. The results show that all participants were inclined to help. Participants who were primed towards safe traffic more often called the emergency number, but talked to the victim less often. Participants who had received specific courses of action moved the victim less often. In all, the results clearly indicate the value of effective risk communication (before an event occurs) and crisis communication (after an event has occurred), as both types of information improve the quality of actual helping behavior at the scene.     

If only consumers knew: How sampling impacts wine innovation diffusion in the U.S. foodservice industry

A survey (n = 151) explored consumers’ experiences with wine-on-tap, a current trend in the U.S. foodservice industry. Wine consumers’ innovativeness (R² = .49) was explained by wine involvement, opinion leadership, and usage of information sources. Those who recently tried wine-on-tap (n = 43) were significantly more innovative (innovators) than those who never tried it (noninnovators). Furthermore, noninnovators expected to pay significantly less for a glass of wine-on-tap when compared with wine poured from a bottle. Contrary to expectations, the driving force for noninnovative behavior is lack of availability and awareness as opposed to a lack of interest in wine-on-tap.