Environmental Outcomes of Urban Land System Change: Comparing Riparian Design Approaches in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area

In the face of climate change and other environmental challenges, an increasing number of cities are turning to land design to enhance urban sustainability. Land system architecture (LSA)—which examines the role of size, shape, distribution, and connectivity of land units in relation to the system’s social-environmental dynamics—can be a useful perspective for examining how land contributes to the social and environmental aspects of urban sustainability. There are two gaps, however, that prevent LSA from fully contributing to urban sustainability dialogues. First, it is not well understood how urban design goals, as expressed by urban planners and other practitioners, relate to LSA and environmental outcomes. Second, most LSA work focuses on individual environmental outcomes, such as the urban heat island effect, instead of considering the broader suite of outcomes that LSA changes impact. Here, we undertake an integrated assessment of LSA impacts on surface urban heat island (based on land surface temperature), vegetation presence/health (based on NDVI), and bird biota at two riparian sites with different design intentions in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. The Rio Salado in Tempe underwent a city-led, infill redevelopment that mixed economic, recreational, and flood control design goals. The New River in Peoria experienced a more typical developer-driven urbanization. The contexts and design goals of the sites generated differences in their LSA, but only a few of these differences were sufficiently unique to contribute to divergent environmental outcomes. These differences reside in (1) the greater distribution of recreational land-covers and (2) increased surface water at the Rio Salado site compared to the New River site. Both changes are linked to land-cover patches becoming greener and cooler as well as a greater presence of waterbird and warbler species at the Rio Salado site. The distinctions between the sites provide insight for crafting design goals for redeveloping or restoring urban riparian landscapes in the Phoenix metropolitan area that are grounded in LSA. With the incorporation of additional relevant variables, especially socioeconomic ones, the research approach employed in this study provides a foundation for the assessment of other urban land system change.     

The difference of expert opinion on the forest-based ecotourism development in developed countries and Iran

Ecotourism development in a forest area includes many positive and negative aspects and requires a comprehensive study that can consider all simultaneously. Because of the inner and outer dependence or feedback links between the criteria in this research, the Analytical Network Process (ANP) based on the BOCR Model was used. Decision making and planning for the development of ecotourism is influenced by the attitude of experts towards development impacts. The question of this research was whether due to different environmental conditions in Iran, is it appropriate to follow ecotourism development patterns of developed countries? Given the different forest conditions in Iran, the weights of decision-making criteria for ecotourism development was significantly different for experts from Iran and developed countries. Weight difference for five sub-criteria, ECB2, ECB3, SOB4, ENC4 and, ENR2 were not significant, but for the rest of the sub-criteria were significant at 1% level. The results of comparing the mean weight values of the alternatives with an independent t-test indicated the difference was significant at 1% level. According to experts of the developed countries, ecotourism development with a weight of 0.927 and according to experts of Iran with a weight of 0.531 was prioritized.     

“主管国际组织”与海洋科学研究国际法规则体系的发展

为推动海洋科学研究，促进国际合作，以《联合国海洋法公约》为主要载体的海洋科学研究国际法规则体系为“主管国际组织”设置了特殊地位和多重角色。主管国际组织是海洋科学研究的参与者、推动者和引导者。主管国际组织海洋科学研究多元发展的趋势日益明显，这与海洋科学研究“公共性”与主管国际组织“功能主义”相互呼应的特点，以及海洋科学研究国际法规则体系提供的支撑密不可分。主管国际组织海洋科学研究多元发展对海洋科学研究国际法规则体系产生了积极影响，有助于明晰“海洋科学研究”的概念，厘清《公约》海洋科学研究相关规定的适用关系，通过一般准则和方针进一步发展海洋科学研究规则体系；这种发展也带来了规则体系和治理机制的碎片化风险，需要思考如何应对。     

新城镇化背景下中国乡村旅游的发展研究述评

伴随旅游产品的类型与形式不断开拓创新,乡村旅游成为现代人出行的主要选择。随着经济社会的快速发展,尤其是中国国家旅游局将2006年定为"乡村旅游年"后,我国乡村旅游进入一个全盛的发展阶段,乡村旅游已经成为旅游业新的增长点。因此,在新型城镇化背景下乡村旅游既要保护农村现有资源、文化特色,又要用科学、动态的眼光引导乡村旅游的发展,从而促进乡村旅游发展模式转型创新。     

Entrepreneurship,economic development and institutions

This paper is an introduction to the special issue from the 3rd Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Research Conference held in Washington, D.C., in 2008. The paper has three objectives. First, to discuss the importance of the three stages of economic development, the factor-driven stage, the efficiency-driven stage and the innovation-driven stage. Second, to examine the empirical evidence on the relationship between stages of economic development and entrepreneurship. Third, to present a summary of the papers in the context of the theory.

Investment liberalization — Why a restrictive cross-border merger policy can be counterproductive

Investment liberalizing countries are often concerned that cross-border mergers and acquisitions, in contrast to greenfield investments, might have an adverse effect on domestic firms and consumers. However, given that domestic assets are sufficiently scarce, we identify a preemption effect and an asset complementarity effect, which imply that the acquisition price is substantially higher than the domestic seller's profits. Moreover, we show that for the acquisition to take place, the MNE must be sufficiently efficient when using the domestic assets, otherwise rivals will expand their business, thereby making the acquisition unprofitable. Consequently, restricting cross-border M&As may also hurt consumers.     

How do Scores of DIT and MJT Differ? A Critical Assessment of the Use of Alternative Moral Development Scales in Studies of Business Ethics

The construct of Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) has drawn much attention in the study of business ethics for over two decades. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) has made a significant contribution to the literature as an easy-to-administer CMD instrument, and the Moral Judgment Test (MJT), an alternative scale, has also been used widely especially in Europe. The two scales differ in their approaches to measuring CMD, focusing on stage preference (DIT) and stage consistency (MJT), yet empirical comparisons have been scarce. The present research empirically compares the two scales in terms of their correspondence with ethical ideology as a reference scale, and it demonstrates a clear distinction between the DIT and the MJT. Although they both aim to measure CMD, their dissimilar approaches lead to distinctly different implications.     

金融中介发展对中国技术效率影响的实证分析

本文运用随机前沿技术实证分析了金融中介发展对我国技术效率的具体影响。分析结果指出,金融中介发展对于我国技术效率的影响具有明显的区域差异特性。在东部地区,金融中介发展有利于技术效率的增长;但从全国范围来看,这种积极作用发生了逆向变化。     

论中国金融发展中的结构制约

加入WTO以后中国金融发展面临的主要问题是既要增强国际竞争力,又必须维护国家的金融安全.但目前中国的金融结构存在着严重缺陷,制约了中国金融业的进一步发展与国际竞争力的提升,对金融稳定与安全产生了诸多的不利影响,因此,中国金融发展不能继续依赖数量增长和加快速度的路径,需要转变思路,以结构调整为重点推进中国金融的改革开放与发展,寻求提升国际竞争力与安全性相统一的金融发展之路.     

中国第三产业的战略地位与发展方向

本文分析了第三产业战略地位的演变历史、趋势和成因;通过回归分析揭示了决定第三产业战略地位的第三产业比重的演变规律;从服务型生产资料、服务消费品、GDP贡献份额、就业贡献份额、第三产业比重增大趋势和资源限制的程度等方面,阐述了第三产业在中国国民经济中的重要战略地位.