浅谈自动喷水灭火系统

自动喷水灭火系统同时具备了防火、控火、灭火的功能,是国际上公认的最为有效的自动灭火设施,是现代建筑防火技术的重要组成部分。文章简单对自动喷水灭火系统进行分析,对设计中常见问题进行讨论。     

中国的社会团体、公民社会和国家组合主义：有争议的领域

20世纪90年代中期以来学术界展开了一场争论：一派认为,应该用公民社会概念来研究中国团体;另一派通过调查研究认为,中国几乎所有团体的生活在本质上是国家组合主义。公民社会和组合主义都关注国家和社会之间的社团和其他机构。但不同的是：公民社会站在社会的角度,发展自治社团,维护“公共领域”的能力,以界定和制约国家权力;组合主义则相反,从国家的角度,为实现政府自己的目的,与选定的社团发展一种特殊的关系。在深入细致的实证研究基础上,学者们考察了中国不同类型社团的活动,得出了不同的结论,同时他们也超越了国家、社会和组合主义以及公民社会的框架,阐明了别的一系列重要的问题。     

Contestability in bus markets – evidence from the British de-regulated market

Following the 1985 Transport Act in Great Britain, reforms in the provision of bus services continue across Europe and other parts of the world to this day. The British experience, however, remains a key point of study in informing these continuing developments. This article looks at the issue of contestability in bus markets, and tests for the existence of the contestable market in Britain through an examination of fare levels, profit margins and technical efficiencies in 90 identifiable bus markets. The main conclusion is that there is evidence of the contestable market in Britain, however it can hardly be described as widespread, only found to be present in 15 of the 90 markets identified in the sample. The real issue however, particularly with regard to continuing reforms elsewhere in Europe, is the ability of regulatory authorities to maintain competitive and contestable (free) markets and the research suggests that in the face of market forces this is simply not possible. The only conclusion therefore is that contestability in the free market is not sustainable, and thus can only be introduced directly through franchising.     

Surplus Value Production and Realization in Marxian Theory – Applications to the U.S., 1990–2015

ABSTRACT

Marx's Capital shows that surplus value can be produced in one industry, yet realized as profit (and possibly revenue) by other industries over the course of circulation. This paper highlights the separation between surplus value production and realization in Marx's work, and develops a new method for estimating surplus value production at the industry level to trace out transfers of surplus value across industries. The framework is based on the ‘New Interpretation’ and links money value added to surplus value production at the industry level. Data on value added by industry for the U.S. are used to estimate surplus value production by industry. The analysis allows comparison of surplus value production and realization in each industry. The pattern of differentials between surplus value creation and realization across industries sheds light on the processes of capitalist competition and points to a source of instability for capitalist economies.     

Structural Economic Change and the Natural Environment in the Russian Federation

Many of Russia's contemporary environmental problems can be related, at least in part, to the activities of the Soviet period. However, the strength of this relationship can sometimes result in the environmental influences of post-Soviet society being ignored or understated. In recognition of this fact, this article examines the relationship between structural economic change and the natural environment in the post-Soviet period. The first part of the article is concerned with general economic trends and associated environmental consequences during the period 1990 to 1997. It then moves on to consider the environmental repercussions of structural changes within the country's industrial and agricultural sectors.     

Border Bargains and the “New” Sovereignty: Canada-US Border Policies from 2001 to 2005 in Perspective

From 2001 to 2005 Canada and the US dramatically altered the way each country views its border. In response to the attacks on New York City and Washington DC, Canada and the US entered into three important partnerships: the Smart Borders Agreement (SBA), the Container Security Initiative (CSI), and the Security Prosperity Partnership (SPP). These arrangements will be conceptualised here as “tacit bargains” whereby Canada provided the US with security in hope of renewed trust and economic accessibility. These “tacit bargains” required a concession of traditional state sovereignty so that stable and predictable relations between both countries could continue. While this process is ostensibly a violation of state sovereignty, the argument presented here is that these three “tacit bargains” represent a transition of “old” sovereignty to “new” sovereignty.     

Does ethics improve stock market resilience in times of instability?

This paper compares the resilience of ethical (Islamic and socially responsible) indexes among five developed (US, UK, Japan, Canada, Australia) and three emerging markets (Brazil, India, South Africa) during the period following the 2008 subprime crisis. It relies on a multivariate CAPM-EGARCH model that accounts for sudden changes in volatility through the application of an iterated cumulative sums of squares (ICSS) algorithm on daily data over the sample period 2008–2014 to model time-varying volatility and ensure reliable estimates. The study confirms the lower systemic risk associated with Islamic indexes during the bearish period and reports that SRI, despite being more subject to systemic risk, offered higher alphas in highly integrated markets, while Islamic indexes performed better in less integrated ones. The evidence also reveals a very limited increase in the models’ predictability power from the integration of sudden changes in volatility into the EGARCH models during the full sample period. This limit is more marked during the bearish sub-period. Our findings have important implications for international investment and portfolio diversification perspectives in times of financial downturn.     

The Information Content of Guidance and Earnings

I compare the information content of quarterly earnings guidance and quarterly earnings by examining their associations with current and future stock returns when the two signals are bundled at earnings announcements. At the bundled announcement, I find a significantly stronger association between announcement returns and guidance news. From the day after the bundled announcement through the next earnings announcement, both signals generate abnormal return drifts of about 200 basis points. However, the timing of the post-announcement returns differs considerably. For guidance, about 50% of the post-announcement drift occurs at the next earnings announcement. In contrast, for earnings, about 20% of the preceding drift reverses at the next earnings announcement. Investor ignorance of the drift following guidance news coupled with a fixation on post-earnings announcement drift potentially explains this surprising difference in the timing of the post-announcement returns. Overall, this study indicates that bundled quarterly earnings guidance contains more information than quarterly earnings and that investors incorrectly overweight the earnings news and underweight the guidance news during the post-announcement period until the next earnings announcement.     

Forecasting VoWLAN technology for the Taiwan mobile telecommunication industry

Disruptive innovation is always a great challenge to the management of incumbent firms, especially in fast-changing industries. In this study, scenarios were developed to facilitate strategic decision-making by incumbent mobile telecommunications firms that confront the threats of disruptive technology of voice over wireless local area network (VoWLAN). Combining various possible outcomes of uncertain conditions and strategic alternatives available to the incumbent firms, six scenarios were developed: incremental evolution, disruptive evolution, cost deterrence, fierce competition, market pre-emption and market convergence. The results show that a passive ‘do-nothing’ strategy by incumbent firms leads to failure if the disruptive technology is inevitable. However, firms can slow the pace of disruptive technology by applying a price-cut strategy and enjoy several years of profits in the process. Industrial insights and strategic implications obtained from all the scenarios are discussed.