公共选择中的公正与效率——公共支出隐含的一个悖论

公共支出的决定程序、运用与来源以及内在的价值取向上,都存在着公正与效率的矛盾,这无疑会影响到公共支出对经济增长的拉动作用.若要兼顾公正与效率以及调和公共支出内在的逻辑矛盾,便需要确定更有效的标准和选择合适的规则,降低交易成本和信息不时称的程度,以更透明的程序和更兼顾社会民众的方式,实现由功能财政向公共财政和民主财政的转变,以此提高积极财政政策的作用效率.     

正负效价面部表情图片加工的差异

为探讨正负效价面部表情图片识别的差异,采用独立呈现范式呈现正负效价面部表情图片,控制呈现时间和提示线索位置,并利用眼动仪记录识别过程中的眼动指标。结果发现:(1)在识别速度和正确率上,加工积极面部表情图片高于加工消极面部表情图片,显示出积极表情优势。(2)呈现时间没有改变正负效价表情图片加工之间的差异。(3)存在提示线索位置效应,即提示线索在嘴部有利于面部表情识别。(4)面部表情识别遵循"眼部-嘴部-眼部"的规律。结果提示不同性质面部表情的加工机制不同,加工深度作用小于线索作用。     

Performance of Fourth-Grade Students with Learning Disabilities on Multiplication Facts Comparing Teacher-Mediated and Technology-Mediated Interventions: A Preliminary Investigation

Instructional applications (apps) are educational software programs that can be accessed via mobile technologies (e.g., iPad, smartphone) and used to help students acquire various academic skills, including mathematics. Although research suggests that app-based instruction (AI) can be effective, there is a paucity of research comparing AI, to teacher-directed instruction (TDI) or to a combination of instructional approaches (CI) involving both AI and TDI in tandem. In an alternating treatments design, we compared AI, TDI, and CI conditions during instruction targeting multiplication facts with six students with learning disabilities. Results were inconsistent across students, and no condition emerged as consistently better than the others. Students completed social validity rating scales, and all approaches were favored by at least one student. Our results support findings from previous research involving similar comparisons between these instructional formats in which no (or minimal) differences across conditions were detected. We conclude that there may not be a meaningful difference between the outcomes achieved using AI, TDI, or CI for many students. Results are discussed in terms of directions for the future research.     

Vision and Mission Statement in Christian Higher Educational Management in Eastern Africa

For the past two decades, Syrio-Palestine/biblical archaeology is known to have gradually disappeared from American colleges. Nonetheless, this issue has rarely been studied and addressed using quantitative and empirical data. In this paper, the past and present of Syrio-Palestine/biblical archaeology in American colleges are diagnosed by examining the archaeology curricula in American colleges. This study indicates that although it may not be moribund, Syrio-Palestine/biblical archaeology is invisible in many colleges. This paper also shows that Syrio-Palestine/biblical archaeology has been traditionally part of biblical studies in the United States, and it may continue to be so in the future. Hence, one potential avenue to revive Syrio-Palestine/biblical archaeology seems to lie in the integrative approach to archaeology and biblical studies.     

Definition of Financial Abuse: A Culture-Centered Construct among Korean Elders

One of the critical issues in addressing financial abuse in Korea is the absence of an appropriate definition voiced by the elderly. This study is designed to explore how Korean elders define financial abuse in given social and cultural contexts. Face-to-face, in-depth interviews were conducted with 124 elders, aged 60 to 79, residing in Korea. The results of qualitative data analysis using grounded theory revealed that a vast majorty of Korean elderly respondents defined financial abuse as lack of provision of financial support to elder parents, and a small portion of respondents defined it as financial exploitation by adult children. The definition of financial abuse reflects cultural beliefs based on filial piety about financial expectations within the parent–child relationship. Education on financial abuse for both elders and their adult children and establishment of income support programs are urgently needed efforts to increase the financial well-being of elderly Koreans.     

Eccentricity biases of object categories are evident in visual working memory

In high-order object areas, face-selective areas prefer centrally presented stimuli, whereas building-selective areas prefer peripherally presented stimuli (Levy et al., 2001). We investigated whether this eccentricity bias was also evident in visual working memory. In Experiment 1, we found that working memory performance for faces decreased towards the periphery while the performance for buildings remained unchanged across different eccentricities. To rule out the possibility that lower level features influence these results, we manipulated the spatial frequency of faces and buildings (Experiment 2) and the spatial layout information of the buildings (Experiment 3). In both of the experiments, we replicated the results of Experiment 1, even when these lower level features of stimuli were controlled. Consistent with previous findings, the current results suggest that each object category is processed in a different manner depending on the eccentricity. This eccentricity bias is likely the result of how the high-order object areas represent different object categories.     

Changes in boundary extension effect during spatial confinement

Changes in perception during space missions are usually attributed to microgravity. However, additional factors, such as spatial confinement, may contribute to changes in perception. We tested changes in scene perception using a boundary extension (BE) paradigm during a 105-day Earth-based space-simulation study. In addition to the close-up/wide-angle views used in BE, we presented two types of scenes based on the distance from the observer (proximal/distant scenes). In crew members (n = 6), we found that BE partly increased over time, but the size of BE error did not change in the control group (n = 22). We propose that this effect is caused by an increasing BE effect in stimuli that depict distant scenes and is related to spatial confinement. The results might be important for other situations of spatial confinement with restricted visual depth (e.g., submarine crew, patients confined to a bed). Generally, we found a larger BE effect in proximal scenes compared with the distant scenes. We also demonstrated that with no feedback, subjects preserve the level of the BE effect during repeated measurements.     

Cognition- and Affect-Based Trust and Feedback-Seeking Behavior: The Roles of Value,Cost, and Goal Orientations

We examined how subordinates’ cognition- and affect-based trust in supervisors influences their feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) by considering the different cost/value perception of FSB and goal orientation (i.e., learning and performance goal orientations). Using data from 194 supervisor-subordinate dyads in South Korea, we conducted multiple regression analyses to test our hypotheses. The results showed that, whereas subordinates’ cognition-based trust in supervisors positively influenced their FSB through increasing the perceived value of feedback received from supervisors, their affect-based trust in supervisors positively influenced their FSB through decreasing the perceived value of FSB. Additionally, we found that, when subordinates had high levels of learning goal orientation, the increasing influence of cognition-based trust on the value of feedback was stronger; in contrast, when subordinates had low levels of performance goal orientation, the decreasing influence of affect-based trust on the cost of FSB was stronger. The theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

Testing Group Mean Differences of Latent Variables in Multilevel Data Using Multiple-Group Multilevel CFA and Multilevel MIMIC Modeling

Considering that group comparisons are common in social science, we examined two latent group mean testing methods when groups of interest were either at the between or within level of multilevel data: multiple-group multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MG ML CFA) and multilevel multiple-indicators multiple-causes modeling (ML MIMIC). The performance of these methods were investigated through three Monte Carlo studies. In Studies 1 and 2, either factor variances or residual variances were manipulated to be heterogeneous between groups. In Study 3, which focused on within-level multiple-group analysis, six different model specifications were considered depending on how to model the intra-class group correlation (i.e., correlation between random effect factors for groups within cluster). The results of simulations generally supported the adequacy of MG ML CFA and ML MIMIC for multiple-group analysis with multilevel data. The two methods did not show any notable difference in the latent group mean testing across three studies. Finally, a demonstration with real data and guidelines in selecting an appropriate approach to multilevel multiple-group analysis are provided.