漫画：儒学在新加坡传播的另类方式

漫画与儒家思想的结合,始于20世纪80年代后期台湾出现的蔡志忠诸子百家漫画系列,这些漫画在中国及东南亚流传甚广。在新加坡,通过漫画传播儒家思想及中华文化,形成了不同的方向。受中国崛起影响,在新加坡,华文教育及传承中华文化的需要日益增加,但英文是教育主流,华文教育水平滑落。本着灵活、轻松学习华文和中华文化的宗旨,漫画这一方式在新加坡的教育体系中创造了新的空间,逐渐成为教材和教学的组成部分。本文将简述儒家思想在新加坡传播的现状,分析20世纪80年代新加坡学校推行儒家伦理课程受挫的原因,将其与新加坡华文教育的大背景结合,探讨漫画传播儒家思想和中华文化如何在新加坡重视华文教育的新形势下获得肯定,并逐渐成为其教育体系的组成部分。     

Who Are Your Neighbors? The Role of Ideology and Decline of Geographic Proximity in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations

States adopt policy innovations within the confines of a dynamic American federal system, but our study of policy diffusion tends to be fairly static. Single‐policy studies incorporate temporal variation, but for only one innovation. Macro‐level analyses examine broad patterns, but often by completely pooling across policy and time. This makes it difficult to identify how diffusion patterns change over time, though Walker's early work explicitly identified such temporal instability. This study specifically examines how neighbor and ideological cues change in importance over time using a dataset of 556 policies adopted from 1960 to 2014. While the findings demonstrate the generality of many key internal, external, and policy‐level determinants of adoption, there is variation in these effects across time. Most important is the relative stability of ideological similarity between adopters and declining influence of contiguous neighbors. Further, political polarization plays a role in conditioning neighbor and ideological cues.     

Social construction and the diffusion of anti-trafficking laws in the U.S.

Human trafficking is a compelling and persistent problem that has attracted a great amount of attention among political leaders, government institutions, NGOs, and nonprofit organizations. While there is consensus that trafficking necessitates a multipronged policy response commonly known as the “3Ps” (prosecution, protection, and prevention), anti-trafficking policies diffused across U.S. states in a piecemeal fashion. In this paper, we explore the fragmented diffusion of the different types of anti-trafficking laws. Drawing from social constructivist approaches, we posit that the differential diffusion rates depend on the social construction of the target population and policy intention of the law. Using event history analysis, we examine the diffusion of 14 types of human trafficking laws throughout the U.S. during 2003–2013. We find strong support for our hypotheses and show substantial differences in the rates at which prosecution, protection, and prevention-related laws diffuse.     

高新技术产业布局特征分析

影响高新技术产业布局的区位因子主要是知识、技术、资金和信息。地方政府对高新技术产业的扶持因素和对外开放条件对高新技术产业区位选择的影响越来越大。高新技术产业区位具有智力密集、良好的外部发展条件、对外开放度高和交通方便、生产和生活环境质量相对较高、位于大中城市等特征。高新技术产业布局存在着区域集聚与扩散两种过程。     

Epidemiological spaces: the use of multidimensional scaling to identify cholera diffusion processes in wake of the Philippines insurrection, 1899–1902

Between 1902 and 1904 an epidemic of cholera, fuelled initially by the operations of the Philippine-American War (1899–1902), swept through the Philippine Islands in two waves. In earlier papers, the authors showed that spatially contagious spread dominated the waves at the geographical levels of province, island and nation (Smallman-Raynor and Cliff 1998a, b). To explore the visualization and analysis of epidemic transmission in an alternative metric, the present paper uses multidimensional scaling (MDS) to translate the spread corridors followed by the waves from conventional geographical space into non-Euclidean cholera spaces. The re-mapping confirms the importance of contagious diffusion in the spread of the epidemic, but also picks out the moments in time in which spread driven through the population hierarchy switched in. In addition, the analysis illustrates the utility of constructing non-Euclidean spaces to identify disease diffusion processes.     

Diffusion and kinetic control of weathering layer development

The formation of porous weathering rinds (layers of chemical alteration) on the exterior of rocks is a consequence of dissolution and precipitation of minerals occurring at the mineral–fluid interface within the pores. The speed at which the developed rind advances is controlled by both kinetic reaction rates and the transport of reaction products away from the pore spaces into the outside fluid. We show, using both reaction‐diffusion theory and numerics, that under diffusion limitations, the weathering rate depends on the size and curvature of the sample. This leads to a relationship between rind thickness, δ, and age, t. As the rind thickens, the result in three dimensions differs substantially from the one‐dimensional result of . We describe the conditions under which the one‐dimensional and diffusion‐limited approximations apply and how they evolve as the rock weathers. Under chemical kinetic limitations, the rind advances at a constant rate, dδ/dt = v. We defend the application of a spherical approximation to irregular non‐spherical rocks and apply our results to field observations reported in the literature to show consistency with established methods. Finally, we argue that the variability in size, as well as in mineralogy, over ensembles of grains contributes to heterogeneous weathering rates. We demonstrate that this heterogeneity can contribute to the aging, or gradual decrease with time, of weathering rates previously observed in laboratory and field measurements.     

Spatial dimensions increase the effect of cultural drift

The transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture (Neolithic) spread gradually across Europe from the Southeast. A reduction in cultural diversity of crop farming practices has been previously observed by comparing pre-LBK Neolithic sites in Greece and the Balkans (dated about 8500 yr BP) to LBK Neolithic sites in Central Europe (dated about 7000 yr BP). The decrease in crop diversity is statistically significant even when considering only the species less likely to have been subject to smaller productivity due to climatic factors (reductions in growing season, temperature, daylight, etc.). This reduction in cultural diversity has not been explained previously. In this paper we show that spatial drift, which occurred on the front of the advancing wave of pioneer settlements, can explain the observed loss of diversity during the LBK range expansion. Our results suggest that spatial dimensions can have a relevant effect also in other case studies in which cultural drift is important.     

Vested Interests and the Diffusion of Education Reform across the States

How do interest groups shape the diffusion of policies they oppose across the states? This study explores this question using the case of teachers' unions and education reform policies. Using a novel dataset on charter, voucher, and performance pay policies spanning 1992–2013, I find evidence that strength of the teachers' unions decreases the likelihood of performance pay and that additional strength is less impactful with more Democratic control of the legislature. Teachers' unions are weakly related to a lack of charter laws and do not impact voucher laws. The latter two policies are more strongly associated with policymaker learning and education reform advocacy groups, respectively. These findings suggest that vested interests most strongly impact the policies that most fundamentally threaten their organizational strength and that this effect is conditioned on the party in power; increases in interest group strength are not necessary when policymakers are already sympathetic.     

Numerical model of pore‐pressure diffusion associated with the initiation of the 2010–2011 Guy–Greenbrier,Arkansas earthquakes

We model pore‐pressure diffusion caused by pressurized waste‐fluid injection at two nearby wells and then compare the buildup of pressure with the observed initiation and migration of earthquakes during the early part of the 2010–2011 Guy–Greenbrier earthquake swarm. Pore‐pressure diffusion is calculated using MODFLOW 2005 that allows the actual injection histories (volume/day) at the two wells to diffuse through a fractured and faulted 3D aquifer system representing the eastern Arkoma basin. The aquifer system is calibrated using the observed water‐level recovery following well shut‐in at three wells. We estimate that the hydraulic conductivities of the Boone Formation and Arbuckle Group are 2.2 × 10^?2 and 2.03 × 10^?3 m day^?1, respectively, with a hydraulic conductivity of 1.92 × 10^?2 m day^?1 in the Hunton Group when considering 1.72 × 10^?3 m day^?1 in the Chattanooga Shale. Based on the simulated pressure field, injection near the relatively conductive Enders and Guy–Greenbrier faults (that hydraulically connect the Arbuckle Group with the underlying basement) permits pressure diffusion into the crystalline basement, but the effective radius of influence is limited in depth by the vertical anisotropy of the hydraulic diffusivity. Comparing spatial/temporal changes in the simulated pore‐pressure field to the observed seismicity suggests that minimum pore‐pressure changes of approximately 0.009 and 0.035 MPa are sufficient to initiate seismic activity within the basement and sedimentary sections of the Guy–Greenbrier fault, respectively. Further, the migration of a second front of seismicity appears to follow the approximately 0.012 MPa and 0.055 MPa pore‐pressure fronts within the basement and sedimentary sections, respectively.     

The Determinants of Policy Introduction and Bill Adoption: Examining Minimum Wage Increases in the American States, 1997–2006

Faced with long intervals between federal minimum wage increases in recent years, state legislatures are increasingly likely to take action. Motivated by the relative dearth of empirical work on minimum wages in the American states, this article considered various explanations to determine which factors are associated with legislative efforts to pass wage increases. Taking seriously the view that disagreements over the effects of minimum wage increases enhances the influence of political factors, we drew on the policy adoption and diffusion literature to examine how internal determinants (political and economic variables) and regional diffusion pressures relate to both the introduction and adoption of minimum wage legislation in the American states in the years between the last two federal minimum wage increases (1997–2006). Employing negative binomial regression to analyze annual bill introductions, we found that a number of political variables are related to the consideration of minimum wage increases. However, using event history analysis to examine annual adoptions of minimum wage increases, we found few of the same variables matter. We concluded with a discussion of the empirical results within the context of the broader policy literature and cautioned future scholars to consider seriously whether political factors exert distinct influences at different stages of the policy process.