The scales used in schools for the purpose of student assessment are ordinal. The average of ordinal values is often used for the evaluation and comparison of overall student performance. We demonstrate a theorem for the selection of scales invariant with respect to rank of average and compare scales according to this property. A uniformity criterion is also defined for the choice of the scale on which to calculate the average. Concatenated sets of grades from scales not belonging to the same category may bring about errors of rank and absurd averaging, which may have a heavy impact on related decision-making processes. 相似文献
This paper examined online sentiment, key themes and patterns evident in social media activity about digital entrepreneurship. It provides a snapshot-in-time, visual-first perspective on social media user-generated-content (UGC) to better understand the topic of digital entrepreneurship. Global data consisting of 31,017 publicly available UGC which used the #digitalentrepreneurship (hashtag) and the keywords ‘digital entrepreneurship’ were collected. A computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS), Leximancer, was used for an automated text-mining analysis. There is positive online sentiment surrounding digital entrepreneurship technology, ecosystem and industry, and one which promotes women transformation of digital entrepreneurship globally. Negative sentiment pointed out that future development and support of youth in digital entrepreneurship is needed. Digital entrepreneurs were identified as needing to focus on strategy, leadership, management, and social media platforms. A comprehensive perspective on the state of digital entrepreneurship in online UGC is provided. Insights into the challenges, issues, changes, success stories and key topics in digital entrepreneurship are highlighted. Future research is encouraged to adopt longitudinal and quantitative approaches, to provide further insights into the evolution of digital entrepreneurship. The paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by applying the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Media User Engagement Framework to better understand social media activity around digital entrepreneurship. The findings show that there are real challenges and issues to overcome but there are also changes occurring in digital entrepreneurship and social media users are keen to share and learn from digital entrepreneurship success stories.
The dichotomy between intended and unintended outcomes of individual and collective action is central to political economy. It concerns the relationship of markets and states and their link to the constitution of society. As such, this dichotomy points to the patterns of connectivity that provide the social embedding of markets and states. The present paper argues that civil society is best understood as the principal locus of connectivity in which markets and states operate. Civil society so configured is neither separate from the body politic and commercial society nor subordinate to them but instead constitutes the primary objective structure of the social domain. It embeds the causal arrangements that determine the crisscrossing of both intended and unintended outcomes in specific contexts. Within the social domain, dispositions of the means-end type interact with non-instrumental dispositions. One important implication is that civil society is compatible with a range of different political economies and specific socio-economic arrangements. Based on a typology of three distinct paradigms of civil society, we argue that the proximity paradigm is conducive to the discovery of political economies that foster greater openness and specificity compared with the political and the economic paradigm. This paper suggests that the theory of civil society in general and the proximity paradigm in particular are indispensable heuristic tools to identity the unrealized capacities inherent in any given social configuration. A proximity heuristic is applied to the discussion of credit arrangements and policy. We conclude that a hierarchy of policy principles is necessary to preserve the primacy of social connectivity over means-end relationships and the conditions for context-specific arrangements and policy options. 相似文献
Unintentional poisoning is a significant child public health problem. This systematic overview of reviews, supplemented with a systematic review of recently published primary studies synthesizes evidence on non-legislative interventions to reduce childhood poisonings in the home with particular reference to interventions that could be implemented by Children's Centres in England or community health or social care services in other high income countries. Thirteen systematic reviews, two meta-analyses and 47 primary studies were identified. The interventions most commonly comprised education, provision of cupboard/drawer locks, and poison control centre (PCC) number stickers. Meta-analyses and primary studies provided evidence that interventions improved poison prevention practices. Twenty eight per cent of studies reporting safe medicine storage (OR from meta-analysis 1.57, 95% CI 1.22–2.02), 23% reporting safe storage of other products (OR from meta-analysis 1.63, 95% CI 1.22–2.17) and 46% reporting availability of PCC numbers (OR from meta-analysis 3.67, 95% CI 1.84–7.33) demonstrated significant effects favouring the intervention group. There was a lack of evidence that interventions reduced poisoning rates. Parents should be provided with poison prevention education, cupboard/drawer locks and emergency contact numbers to use in the event of a poisoning. Further research is required to determine whether improving poison prevention practices reduces poisoning rates. 相似文献
‘Social auditing’ is everywhere. An increasing number of companies – and also public and voluntary sector organisations – are trying to assess their social performance systematically. Shell, BP and General Motors are among them. How are they doing it? What impact do NGOs and civil society organisations have on this process? Do they have a privileged place in social audits? This article looks at these questions, and sets out a framework for understanding social audits and civil society. Examples are drawn particularly from the recent Camelot social audit (‘Camelot and Social Responsibility’, Social Report 1999). Camelot plc is the operator of the UK national lottery. 相似文献
Barbados is water stressed, with water production close to its renewable freshwater resources. The hotel sector uses far more water than the general population (756 vs. 240 L/cap-d); water savings there would improve the overall water balance. No comprehensive analysis exists for water use by the Barbados hotel industry; this study addresses the gap. Data were collected from the Barbados Water Authority and from onsite surveys; consumption patterns were compared with international studies which had established environmentally acceptable benchmarks. The water use efficiency of Barbadian hotels was also studied as a function of “influential variables”: unit water consumption was somewhat correlated with the number of rooms, average room rate, property size and number of employees. The lack of success in reducing hotels' water consumption is tied to the fact that water bills represent less than 5% of their annual expenses. A model for unit water consumption was derived using two influential variables: the annual number of guest nights and the number of employees. Ways of fostering sound water practices include promotion among guests of the need to save water, schemes to promote the financial benefits of water conservation by relating unit water pricing to total consumption and awareness-raising among hotel managers. 相似文献
This paper is concerned with the concept of culture shock in relation to immigrants, sojourners, and tourists. The concept of culture shock is analyzed as well as the salient literature arising from it, such as the stage-wise process of adaptation to an unfamiliar environment and individual and situational determinants of adjustment. The paper is also concerned with the effect of tourism on the host population. It is argued that many of the concepts found in the mental health, migration, and sojourner-adjustment literature are applicable to the study of tourism. 相似文献
We prove a law of large numbers for the loss from default and use it for approximating the distribution of the loss from default in large, potentially heterogeneous portfolios. The density of the limiting measure is shown to solve a nonlinear stochastic partial differential equation, and certain moments of the limiting measure are shown to satisfy an infinite system of stochastic differential equations. The solution to this system leads to the distribution of the limiting portfolio loss, which we propose as an approximation to the loss distribution for a large portfolio. Numerical tests illustrate the accuracy of the approximation, and highlight its computational advantages over a direct Monte Carlo simulation of the original stochastic system. 相似文献