高校“两课“教学存在的问题与对策之我见

"两课"是对大学生进行马克思主义理论与思想政治教育的主阵地和主渠道,本文分析了"两课"教学存在的主要问题及原因,对提高"两课"教学实效性的对策进行了探索和思考.     

高职教育实践性教学初探

加强高等职业教育的实践性教学,是高等职业教育教学改革的一个关键的突破口。只有加强实践性教学的探讨和创新,才能突出高职教育的特色。要积极探讨建立实践性教学为主的模式和运行机制,如实践性教学导师制、学生模拟实习公司等。同时,要处理好理论教学与实践教学的关系,处理好培养人才"宽"与"窄"的关系。     

会计(连锁企业财会审)专业教学改革试点研究

专业教学试点的实践证明,《会计(连锁企业财会审)》试点专业教学改革方案是可行的,“从实际出发,加强学生能力培养”的模式在专业教学改革试点中充分发挥了作用,学生初步具备了一定的外语能力,具有较广泛的专业知识。本文以详实的资料论述了两年来的改革经验,有一定的参考借鉴作用。     

浅谈计算机教学

如何迎接二十一世纪的挑战,培养适应社会需要和发展的一流人才,急需学校和其他教育部门应尽快变革与现时经济发展脱节的教学模式、课程设置,尤其是职业学校计算机教学应适应社会发展,使学生在计算机应用方面有一技之长。     

构建高校"两课"教学新模式--运用网络教育与传统教育互补优势提高"两课"教学效果

在以科技为主导的21世纪，网络多媒体教学已成为教育领域新兴的重要教学模式，将网络教育引入到“两课”教学建设中，探讨二者的优势互补作用，对激发“两课”的活力，充分发挥“两课”对大学生进行思想政治教育的主渠道和主阵地的作用是十分必要的。     

Forecasting recovery rates on non-performing loans with machine learning

We compare the performance of a wide set of regression techniques and machine-learning algorithms for predicting recovery rates on non-performing loans, using a private database from a European debt collection agency. We find that rule-based algorithms such as Cubist, boosted trees, and random forests perform significantly better than other approaches. In addition to loan contract specificities, predictors that refer to the bank recovery process — prior to the portfolio’s sale to a debt collector — are also shown to enhance forecasting performance. These variables, derived from the time series of contacts to defaulted clients and client reimbursements to the bank, help all algorithms better identify debtors with different repayment ability and/or commitment, and in general those with different recovery potential.     

General equilibrium impact of an energy-saving policy in the public sector

We analyse a disregarded environmental policy instrument: a switch in government expenditure away from energy (or other natural resources) and toward a composite good which includes energy-saving expenditure. We first develop two variants of an analytical general equilibrium model. A composite good is produced with constant returns to scale, and energy is imported or produced domestically with diminishing returns, yielding a differential rent to its owners. The government purchases energy and composite goods from private firms. Such a policy unambiguously increases employment. It also raises private consumption and welfare under two conditions: (i) it is not too costly and (ii) the initial share of the resource is smaller in public spending than in private consumption, or the difference is small enough. We then run numerically a model featuring both importation and domestic production of energy (oil, gas and electricity), for the OECD as a whole. Simulations show that employment, welfare and private consumption rise. We provide magnitudes for different parameter values. Earlier versions of this paper have benefited from conference participants at the European Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, International Society for Ecological Economics World Congress, CIRED seminar and EUREQua environmental economics seminar. We especially thank Michèle Sadoun and two anonymous referees. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Threshold models for trended time series

This paper presents the theoretical development of a new threshold autoregressive model based on trended time series. The theoretical arguments underlying the model are outlined and a nonlinear economic model is used to derive the specification of the empirical econometric model. Estimation and testing issues are considered and analysed. Additionally we apply the model to the empirical investigation of U.S. GDP.This paper is the result of work carried out for the author's Ph.D. thesis. I would like to thank Hashem Pesaran for his help, encouragement and insights during the preparation of this paper. I also thank Gary Koop and Sean Holly for helpful comments. Financial assistance from the Economic and Social Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.     

Noisy chaotic dynamics in commodity markets

The nonlinear testing and modeling of economic and financial time series has increased substantially in recent years, enabling us to better understand market and price behavior, risk and the formation of expectations. Such tests have also been applied to commodity market behavior, providing evidence of heteroskedasticity, chaos, long memory, cyclicity, etc. The present evaluation of futures price behavior confirms that the resulting price movements can be random, suggesting noisy chaotic behavior. Prices could thus follow a mean process that is dynamic chaotic, coupled with a variance that follows a GARCH process. Our conclusion is that models of this type could be constructed to assist in forecasting prices in the short run but not over long run time periods.First version received: June 2001/Final version received: March 2003     

Hedonic models and air pollution: Twenty-five years and counting

This paper reports a meta analysis of how effectively hedonic property models have detected the influence of air pollution on housing prices. Probit estimates are reported describing how data, model specification, and local property market conditions in cities represented in thirty-seven studies influence the ability of hedonic models to uncover negative, statistically significant relationships between housing prices and air pollution measures.Partial support for this research was provided by the Russell Sage Foundation. Thanks are due David Cordray, Heidi Hartman, and Larry Hedges of the Foundation's Meta-Analysis Panel for constructive comments, to Ray Palmquist for suggestions and assistance in assembling the results from his studies, to Rick Freeman and Tom Tietenberg and two anonymous referees for comments on the research, and to Barbara Scott for constructive editing of earlier drafts of this paper.