How to improve a technology evaluation model: A data-driven approach

Academic research suggests a number of technology evaluation models. To ensure effective use, models need to be improved in accordance with changing internal and external environments. However, a majority of previous studies focus on model development, while a few emphasize their implementation or improvement. To fill this research gap, this study suggests a systematic approach to examining the validity of technology evaluation models and improving them. We consider three propositions as criteria for improvement: 1) the coherence of the evaluation results with the evaluation purpose, 2) the appropriateness of the evaluation methods, and 3) the concreteness of the evaluation model. Rather than using expert opinions, this study takes a data-driven approach, wherein we analyze actual evaluation results and determine whether the model produces the intended results. A case study of 291 technology evaluation results, all made by the South Korean government in support of technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises, is conducted to verify the suggested approach's applicability. This is one of the few studies to address issues regarding improvements to a technology evaluation model. Its approach can help to develop and continuously improve a valid technology evaluation model, thus leading to more effective practice.     

中南大学麓山南路周边校区交通优化策略研究

随着校园周边交通条件的复杂化,中南大学校园周边出现了如交通拥堵、事故频发、环境污染等一系列交通问题,亟待提出有针对性的交通优化策略改善交通条件。本论文在借鉴和总结国内外大学校园交通组织的基础上,以中南大学麓山南路周边校区为研究对象,提出具体的交通优化策略。     

Educational Development in South Sudan: Conscious Design or Spontaneous Order?

Educational development is key to the future prosperity of South Sudan. Officially the situation appears bleak with up to 50 per cent of primary‐aged children out of school, high reported dropout rates and poor attainment. Those involved in the development of education, government departments, international agencies, individuals and communities are each following one of two different approaches as they seek to extend the reach of education. The article suggests that these different approaches arise because those involved hold to either a conscious‐design or a spontaneous‐order model for educational development. The article looks at the recent development of schools in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, in the light of these two theories and finds, despite the rhetoric of the official reports, that most growth is organic and that most recent educational development is emerging spontaneously.     

Non-income effect of land ownership and tenure on subjective wellbeing in South Africa

Aside from the very high inequality of land ownership, South Africa is characterised by a dual land tenure system comprising of private ownership and communal land ownership. Using waves 4 and 5 of the National Income Dynamics Study longitudinal data set, a set of econometric methodologies is employed to quantify the impact of ownership and tenure on an index of subjective wellbeing (SWB) constructed from eight self-reported responses covering general life satisfaction, contrast, social capital, mental health and hope for future. Controlling for the income effect and other pertinent drivers of SWB, the study highlights the non-income impact of land ownership and tenure on the subjective wellbeing of individuals. To account for possible endogeneity and self-selection, instrumental variable and matching method-based treatment effects are computed. This paper has two main findings in relation to land tenure in South Africa: (a) land owners have on average a higher index of SWB compared to those not owning land, and (b) owning land privately, compared to owning land communally, has a positive impact on subjective wellbeing within land owners. These results are consistent and statistically significant across the various estimation strategies and provide additional motivation for expediting land reforms in South Africa.     

Building from Scratch: New Cities,Privatized Urbanism and the Spatial Restructuring of Johannesburg after Apartheid

By the start of the twenty‐first century, the once dominant historical downtown core of Johannesburg had lost its privileged status as the center of business and commercial activities, the metropolitan landscape having been restructured into an assemblage of sprawling, rival edge cities. Real estate developers have recently unveiled ambitious plans to build two completely new cities from scratch: Waterfall City and Lanseria Airport City (formerly called Cradle City) are master‐planned, holistically designed ‘satellite cities’ built on vacant land. While incorporating features found in earlier city‐building efforts, these two new self‐contained, privately‐managed cities operate outside the administrative reach of public authority and thus exemplify the global trend toward privatized urbanism. Waterfall City, located on land that has been owned by the same extended family for nearly 100 years, is spearheaded by a single corporate entity. Lanseria Airport City/Cradle City is a planned ‘aerotropolis’ surrounding the existing Lanseria airport at the northwest corner of the Johannesburg metropole. These two new private cities differ from earlier large‐scale urban projects because everything from basic infrastructure (including utilities, sewerage, and the installation and maintenance of roadways), landscaping, security services, the regulation of common spaces, and selling and branding the city are firmly in the hands of private profit‐making corporate entities and outside the mandate of public authorities.     

Job Search and the Measurement of Unemployment in South Africa

We interrogate the distinction between searching and non‐searching unemployment in South Africa using data from the first national panel survey that tracks the individual. In particular, we test whether the non‐searching unemployed display a weaker commitment to the labour market than the searching unemployed, and we investigate what counts as search activity. We find that over the panel, the search status of the unemployed does not predict their subsequent employment status, a result that is robust also for subsamples that vary by age cohort, gender and location. Moreover, social networks are the most important job‐finding strategy of the employed. These findings challenge the exclusion of the non‐searching unemployed from the measure of “genuine” work seekers.     

How credible is the North Korean threat?

We perform event analysis on particular episodes of tension in the Korean peninsula between 2000 and 2008, and investigate the effect of the events on South Korean financial markets (stock markets, bond yield spreads and the exchange rate) given that South Korea would be the first affected by a military aggression from North Korea. Surprisingly, in nearly all cases, these events, which have often been dramatized in the world media, have no significant impact on either of these variables or only a very small one. We also find no significant impact of events on listed firms that would a priori be likely to suffer from increased tension between the two Koreas. Since financial markets often contain better predictions than expert opinions or surveys, these results strongly suggest that the North Korean threat is non‐credible.     

The importance of farmer education in South Australia

There is a significant challenge involved with balancing food security at local and global levels whilst mitigating the environmental and social consequences of the historically productivist agri-food system. This work will address the importance of education in the South Australian agricultural sector as a tool to maximise beneficial outcomes. The results of a blended method research project, which involved farmers and governance stakeholders in South Australia, are presented as empirical evidence highlighting the positive roles that formal education, in particular university education, have in regard to increasing sustainability. It was found that higher levels of formal education contributed to farmers being more likely to prioritise the socio-environmental outcomes of their agricultural land use. There was also a dramatic reduction in farmer concerns with government support mechanisms as education levels went from secondary or less, through to vocational qualifications, and finally university degrees. Interviews with agricultural governance stakeholders emphasised the role of education in building the adaptive capacity of farmers, and the subsequent positive outcomes for the future development of the South Australian agricultural industry. These results suggest that further education provides farmers with the capacity to compete effectively in a liberalised economy.     

Can (unusual) weather conditions in New York predict South African stock returns?

This paper investigates the explanatory power of certain weather variables, measured as deviations from their monthly averages, in a leading international financial trading centre, i.e., New York, for South African stock returns, over the daily period January 2nd, 1973 to December, 31, 2015. The empirical results highlight that these unusual deviations of weather variables have a statistically significant negative effect on the stock returns in South Africa, indicating that unusual weather conditions in New York can be used to predict South African stock returns, which otherwise seems to be highly unpredictable. In fact, a forecasting exercise recommends that a trading rule that considers those weather variables through a GARCH modelling approach seems to outperform the random walk model and thus beat the market.