现代远程教育挑战传统教育

介绍了远程教育的特点、国外远程教育的现状、我国远程教育面临的问题、传统教育面对挑战所做出的积极反应并阐述了远程教育的发展前景。     

When Consumers and Products Come From the Same Place: Preferences and WTP for Geographical Indication Differ Across Regional Identity Groups

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the existing literature on geographical indications by observing consumers’ stated preference for extra-virgin olive oil in two groups differing in their regional identity. In particular, consumers from two groups were asked to rank products in a contingent ranking survey. One group (“insiders,” Sicilian consumers) shared origin with a good product (Sicilian oil); the other group (“outsiders,” Rome and Milan) presented “no association” consumer-product. Results indicate that insiders are willing to pay more for goods originating from the region they identify with compared with a region associated with outsiders. Identity seems to give a bias by which a local product is not necessarily perceived as superior in absolute terms, but in relative terms: outside products are never considered better than inside options but are either inferior or equal in perceived value.     

Country of Origin Effect for Food Products from Developing and Transition Countries: A PLS Analysis of German Consumers’ Perception

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the importance of the country of origin (COO) effect in German consumers’ perception of chocolate quality using the example of chocolate made from Ecuadorian raw cocoa. From earlier COO and consumer perception research, a complex research framework grounded in schema and attribution theory has been developed acknowledging the multifactorial character of consumers’ food quality perception. Based on this framework, a PLS analysis of primary data from an online survey of 205 German chocolate consumers is conducted. The results demonstrate the overall applicability of the research framework and give evidence on the underlying complex consumer perception process of COO-labeled food products. For the case of chocolate made from Ecuadorian cocoa, PLS estimations show a strong COO effect in German consumers’ quality perceptions and identify characteristics of the target consumer group. Protecting geographical indications may offer a potential for products from developing and transition countries to differentiate in the German market, a prime example for European markets, and should be promoted more strongly by government offices and NGOs.     

Urban Influence on Costs of Production in the Corn Belt

This article determines the relative technical efficiency of rural- and urban-influenced crop/livestock enterprises in the Corn Belt. Farmers in urban-influenced locations are less technically efficient than farmers in rural locations. During 1998–2000, stochastic production frontier procedures indicate that a 10% increase in urban influence leads to a close to 4% decrease in technical efficiency. The most successful urban-influenced farms have controlled costs as effectively as rural farms. They have tended to de-emphasize that nondairy livestock activities—particularly beef and hogs—do not rely extensively on off-farm income, and have relatively large, less residential/lifestyle operations compared to less successful urban-influenced farmers. However, our statistical analysis clearly bears out the refrain in popular literature that urban proximity raises the cost for, and decreases the viability of, traditional farms.     

农产品地理标志发展研究：现状、困境和路径选择

中国发展农产品地理标志存在诸多问题,如存在多头管理的体制机制、“公地悲剧”、价值的来源却认识不清、依赖地理标志购买的现象并不普遍等等。这些问题需要从理顺体制机制、有序推进保护、打击违法行为、建立和健全技术创新和推广体系、推进地理标志农产品产业化、标准化和规模化经营、打造品牌等方面着手解决。     

Targeting Conservation Investments in Heterogeneous Landscapes: A Distance-Function Approach and Application to Watershed Management

To achieve an environmental objective at least cost, decision makers must integrate information about spatially variable biophysical and economic conditions. Although the biophysical attributes that contribute to an environmental outcome are often known, the way in which these attributes interact to produce the outcome is often unknown. We introduce a nonparametric conservation targeting approach that relies on distance functions to cost-efficiently allocate conservation funds. We apply the approach empirically to the case of conservation contracting for water-quality objectives. The contract portfolios derived from the application have many desirable properties, including intuitive appeal and robust performance across plausible parametric scoring measures.     

求半正定Hermitian矩阵特征向量的改进乘幂法

经典乘幂法结合压缩法是计算半正定Hermitian矩阵最大前n个特征值对应特征向量的重要方法,但其固定的迭代次数使得待分解矩阵的随机变化和初始向量的不同选择导致计算精度波动较大,同时,较大特征值对应特征向量的计算误差也会影响较小特征值对应特征向量的计算。为克服这些缺点,提出了一种将前后两次迭代所求向量的距离作为迭代终止条件的改进乘幂法,并证明了它在有误差传播时的收敛性。理论计算结果表明,对4阶半正定Hermitian随机矩阵,在相同计算精度前提下,所提方法比经典方法可至少降低一半计算复杂度。     

The virtual is reality! On physical and virtual space in software firms’ knowledge formation

ABSTRACT

To understand how knowledge is created and exchanged, it is necessary to unwrap the role played by the physical and virtual spaces. The extant research offers interesting findings when it comes to the relationships among regional, institutional and organizational characteristics, innovation and firms’ abilities to link up to global knowledge sources. A focus on the role of informal and low-cost mechanisms, both regional and global, has extended our understanding of their role in knowledge formation. However, the physical space has dominated this literature to the detriment of the virtual space. The inclusion of the virtual space, both as an interaction space and as a different and complementary dimension, makes it possible to gain new insights into knowledge formation in a digitalizing world. Based on in-depth interviews with small- and medium-sized software companies in two urban agglomerations in Norway and Sweden, this paper explores the use of physical and virtual spaces. The findings show that these spaces interact and mutually influence each other. The world is not ‘flattening’ due to ongoing digitalization; moreover, urban agglomerations are still important places in which these spaces are optimized and unified.     

试论强化我国地理标志的法律保护——以法国香槟酒行业委员会与商标评审委员会商标争议纠纷为引

随着经济的发展,人们越来越重视地理标志在市场竞争中的作用。各国均在法律层面对地理标志予以保护,并采用不同的立法模式。我国表现为结合运用《商标法》和《地理标志产品保护规定》来保护地理标志。但从实践来看,此种方式尚存在缺陷。在最新修订的《商标法》中也没有提出将地理标志区分于其他标志而给予针对性的规定。为了进一步发挥其在国际竞争中的经济价值,我国应当给予地理标志更大力度的保护。     

Interpoint Distance Test of Homogeneity for Multivariate Mixture Models

Finite mixtures offer a rich class of distributions for modelling of a variety of random phenomena in numerous fields of study. Using the sample interpoint distances (IPDs), we propose the IPD‐test statistic for testing the hypothesis of homogeneity of mixture of multivariate power series distribution or multivariate normal distribution. We derive the distribution of the IPDs that are drawn from a finite mixture of the multivariate power series distribution and multivariate normal distribution. Based on the empirical distribution of the IPDs, we construct a bootstrap test of homogeneity for other multivariate finite mixture models. The IPD test is applied to mixture models for matrix‐valued distributions and a test of homogeneity for Wishart mixture is presented. Numerical comparisons show that IPD test has accurate type I errors and is more powerful in most multivariate cases than the expectation–maximization (EM) test and modified likelihood ratio test.