Forays into the backstage: volunteer tourism and the pursuit of object authenticity

Volunteer tourism is a form of travel that combines traditional leisure pursuits with opportunities to volunteer in an organized fashion. The popularity of volunteer tourism stems from many factors, but the one motivation that appears in virtually every study is a desire for object authenticity, defined as the authenticity of toured objects, people, and settings. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by object authenticity in the motivations and experiences of volunteer tourists in the province of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Based on interviews with 62 volunteers and 15 directors, managers, and staff members from volunteer tourism organizations based in Chiang Mai, this paper argues that volunteer tourists conceive of object authenticity both as a package of cultural stereotypes focused on authentic people, and as authentic backstage settings where ‘real’ Thai reside. Aside from demonstrating that the desire for object authenticity is the central motivation for international volunteers in northern Thailand, this study indicates that the pursuit of object authenticity is complicated by language barriers, the potential staging of authenticity on the part of locals, and the need to balance familiarity with alterity in the carefully selected ‘voluntourscapes’ in which volunteer tourism takes place.     

SNAP and Paycheck Cycles

It is well documented that individuals do not spend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits smoothly over the month after receipt. Rather, recipients spend a disproportionate share of benefits at the beginning of the benefit month. This has costs for recipients and stores. There is also evidence that other income streams, such as Social Security and paychecks, are not spent smoothly. The presence of these other income streams may bias estimates of the effects of this SNAP cycle on consumption for working SNAP beneficiaries and those who receive other government benefits. We use data from United States Department of Agriculture's National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey to explore how the SNAP cycle is affected by accounting for these other income streams. We find suggestive evidence that the cycle is more pronounced for workers who are paid on a weekly or monthly basis, but little evidence that cycles in other income streams mitigate or exacerbate the SNAP cycle.     

变压器绕组温升试验及其不确定度分析

本文介绍了变压器正常加载时的温升试验过程和相关事项，并对试验数据进行变压器温升的不确定度分析。     

The impact of earnings pressure on exploratory innovation

While earnings expectation has been shown to determine a firm’s investment decisions, the knowledge about how such expectation influences a firm’s investment horizon for innovation is still blurred. This study therefore addresses this research issue by examining the relationship between earnings pressure and exploratory innovation while investigating the moderating effects of cross‐rival effect and resource availability. By examining high‐tech industrial firms in S&P 1500 from 2000 to 2012, the results indicate that stock analysts, as information intermediaries between innovation firms and the capital market, impose pressure through earnings forecasts on firms’ exploratory innovation. Our findings also reveal that the earnings pressure‐exploratory innovation relationship can be mitigated when its competitors encounter a higher level of earnings pressure. However, a firm’s financial slack shows less significant association to moderate the earnings pressure‐exploratory innovation relationship. Possible explanations for the results in regard to their theoretical and practical implications are discussed in this study.     

连续钢箱梁桥抗倾覆稳定探讨

通过互通立交(27+41+27)m连续钢箱梁工程,对连续钢箱梁进行计算分析。本次分析采用MIDAS软件建立模型,考虑钢箱梁在最不利荷载组合下的最大内力,进行结构应力和挠度分析。     

新背景下中俄贸易发展研究——基于商品结构和出口商品比较优势的视角

俄罗斯一直以来就是中国重要的经济贸易伙伴。在共建丝绸之路经济带、乌克兰局势、俄罗斯加入WTO等中俄贸易新背景下,本文以近几年中俄贸易现状、中俄贸易结构以及中国出口商品比较优势为基础,分析中俄贸易发展的影响因素,并提出应通过优化中国对俄罗斯出口商品结构、扩大进口俄罗斯能源类产品和高新技术产品、积极促成中俄自由贸易协定、倡导中国企业走出去、争取制定双边贸易规则的主动权等措施来促进中俄贸易的发展。     

Updating Input–Output Tables with Benchmark Table Series

Numerous methods have been proposed to update input–output (I–O) tables. They rely on the assumption that the economic structure will not change significantly during the interpolation period. However, this assumption may not always hold, particularly for countries experiencing rapid development. This study attempts to combine forecasting with a matrix transformation technique (MTT) to provide a new perspective on updating I–O tables. Under the assumption that changes in the trend of an economic structure are statistically significant, the method extrapolates I–O tables by combining time series models with an MTT and proceeds with only the total value added during the target years. A simulation study and empirical analysis are conducted to compare the forecasting performance of the MTT to the Generalized RAS (GRAS) and Kuroda methods. The results show that the comprehensive performance of the MTT is better than the performance of the GRAS and Kuroda methods, as measured by the Standardized Total Percentage Error, Theil's U and Mean Absolute Percentage Error indices.