Suchergebnisse

This paper adopts Michael Saward's representative claims theory to analyze Chinese New Zealanders' participation in non-elected representation. It explores how they made representative claims and examines the democratic legitimacy of their claims. Based on an interpretive analysis of in-depth interviews with 38 Chinese New Zealanders, I found age-based and educational-level-based patterns of how they participate in non-elected representation. Individuals and Chinese associations made representative claims based on various grounds. However, the democratic legitimacy of individual-made claims and association-made claims varied. When interviewees made representative claims, they cherished the claims' instrumental goals and intrinsic values. These findings expand our knowledge of Chinese New Zealanders' political participation and representation. This paper also analyzes the difference between making representative claims and political advocacy. It deepens our understanding of non-elected representation.

In the Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee, China first proposed the strategic policy of building a socialist core value system. After the policy was put forward, many theorists and politicians discussed and studied the identification of socialist core values in many aspects. Specific aspects include the specific role of socialist core values, basic concepts, implementation effects, and future development. The complexity and embarrassment of its theory will bring inconvenience to the in-depth understanding of the masses, therefore, this paper has sorted and analyzed the issue of the identification of socialist core values, and made a better narrative of the research and discussion published by talents in various fields, which made people have a better understanding of the socialist core values.[1]

AbstractWe investigate the empirical performance of default probability prediction based on Merton's (1974) structural credit risk model. More specifically, we study if distance‐to‐default is a sufficient statistic for the equity market information concerning the credit quality of the debt‐issuing firm. We show that a simple reduced form model outperforms the Merton (1974) model for both in‐sample fitting and out‐of‐sample predictability for credit ratings, and that both can be greatly improved by including the firm's equity value as an additional variable. Moreover, the empirical performance of this hybrid model is very similar to that of the simple reduced form model. As a result, we conclude that distant‐to‐default alone does not adequately capture the firm's credit quality information from the equity market. Copyright © 2007 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A belief in communism refers to the unquestionable trust and belief in the justness of communism. Although former studies have discussed the political aim and social value of communism, the cognitive neural basis of a belief in communism remains largely unknown. In this study, we determined the behavioral and neural correlates between a belief in communism and a theory of mind (ToM). For study 1, questionnaire scores were measured and for study 2, regional homogeneity (ReHo) and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) were used as an index for resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI), as measured by the Belief in Communism Scale (BCS). The results showed that a belief in communism is associated with higher ReHo in the left thalamus and lower ReHo in the left medial frontal gyrus (MFG). Furthermore, the results of the rsFC analysis revealed that strength of functional connectivity between the left thalamus and the bilateral precuneus is negatively associated with a belief in communism. Hence, this study provides evidence that spontaneous brain activity in multiple regions, which is associated with ToM capacity, contributes to a belief in communism.

BACKGROUND: Demand for eye care has increased in recent decades in China due to rapid socioeconomic development and demographic shift. Knowledge of output and productivity of ophthalmic services would allow policymakers to optimize resource allocation, and is therefore essential. This study sought to map the landscape of ophthalmic services available in Shanghai, China. METHODS: In 2018, a government-led survey was conducted of all 86 tertiary/secondary hospitals and five major private hospitals providing eye care in Shanghai in the form of electronic questionnaire, which encompassed ophthalmic services (outpatient and emergency room [ER] visit, inpatient admissions, and surgical volume) and service productivity in terms of annual outpatient and ER visits per doctor, inpatient admissions per bed, and surgical volume per doctor. Comparisons were made among different levels of hospitals with categorical variables tested by Chi-square analysis. RESULTS: The response rate was 85.7%. The Eye and Ear, Nose, and Throat (EENT) Hospital was the largest tertiary specialty hospital, and alone contributed to the highest 21.0% of annual ophthalmic outpatient and ER visits (visits per doctor: 5460), compared with other 26 tertiary hospitals, 46 secondary hospitals and five private hospitals (visits per doctor: 3683, 4651 and 1876). The annual inpatient admission was 20,103, 56,992, 14,090, and 52,047 for the EENT Hospital, all the other tertiary hospitals, secondary hospitals and five private hospitals, respectively. Turnover rates were highest for the EENT Hospital and private hospitals. The average surgical volume at the EENT Hospital was 72,666, exceeding that of private (15,874.8) and other tertiary hospitals (3366.7). The EENT Hospital and private hospitals performed 16,982 (14.2%) and 55,538 (46.6%) of all cataract surgeries. Proportions of both complicated cataractous cases and complicated cataract surgeries at the EENT Hospital was the highest, followed by other tertiary and secondary/private hospitals (P < ...