How public theologies can better address fascism,nationalism, and our impatience with God's reign

This article considers the problems of fascism and nationalism today, particularly in the United States, and summarizes definitions of public theology that would be adequate to the current situation. Then three non‐theologians are consulted as resources for public theology: diplomat Madeleine Albright, philosopher Martha Nussbaum, and journalist Chris Hedges. I close with synthetic conclusions, including comment on the necessity of prayer, about the desired character of public theologies today.     

IN DEFENSE OF PUBLICS: PROJECTION,BIAS, AND CULTURAL NARRATIVES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION DEBATES

John H. Evans's recent book Morals Not Knowledge is a timely argument to recognize broader social and cultural factors that might impact what U.S. religious publics think about the relationship between science and religion and their attitudes toward science and/or religion. While Evans's focus is primarily on what can be classed as moral issues, this response argues that there are other factors that sit within neither the older epistemic conflict model approach nor a moral conflict model approach that also merit further investigation. There is a significant need for further research that examines the social, psychological, (geo)political, and broader cultural factors shaping people's social identities in relation to science and religion debates. When undertaking such research, we need to be wary of creating a binary between scholarly and public space discourse. Social scientific research in this field should be led by public perceptions, attitudes, and views, not by concepts or frameworks that we project onto them.     

Between the sea and the shore: mediating the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore

The Chinese diaspora brought tablets and effigies of their Taoist gods with them when they migrated to Southeast Asia. Temples in the region hold annual festivals to evoke this passage from the sea to the shore, assisted by makeshift sets, props, and generators with floodlights. In this article, I examine the durational performances of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore, which consist of people and deities moving in processions. What does it mean to perform spirituality between the sea and the shore? What happens when this coastline is constantly redrawn with land reclamation? There is a mobile imagery described here: technological media transport yet circumscribe the spiritual to the material stage onshore as devotees invite the deities to land. The spiritual is eventually pulled back, leaving behind its residue (ashes, footprints on the sand, talismans) as the deities depart. Spirituality performed along the coast through technological mediation reveals the contemporary nature of these religious practices.     

Context-based variations in EFL teachers’ reflection: the case of public schools versus private institutes in Iran

The aim of the present study was twofold: examining the effect of contextual differences on the degree of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ involvement in reflection and exploring context-related factors that may help/hinder the reflection process. A mixed-methods quantitative-qualitative procedure was adopted. Eighty-five Iranian EFL teachers (41 teaching in public schools and 44 working in private language institutes) completed the English-language teaching reflection inventory developed by Akbari, Behzadpour, and Dadvand (2010 Akbari, R., Behzadpoor, F., &; Dadvand, B. (2010). Development of english language teaching reflection inventory. System, 38, 211–227.10.1016/j.system.2010.03.003[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), with 10 of the participants attending a follow-up interview too. The results of multiple sets of independent samples t-tests showed that teachers in the private sector reported significantly more active involvement in lower levels of reflection (i.e. practical, cognitive, and affective reflection), while no measurable difference was detected between the two groups in terms of higher levels of reflection (i.e. metacognitive and critical reflection). Analysis of the interview data further revealed that teachers’ involvement in reflection was influenced by five main context-specific factors namely, knowledge of reflection, institutional demands, teachers’ attitude toward teaching, availability of resources, and collegial support. The implications of the findings for educational policymakers and teacher educators were discussed and suggestions were provided for future research.     

A multicriteria framework for inventory classification and control with application to intermittent demand

Several papers have studied inventory classification in order to group items with a view to facilitating their management. The generated classes are then coupled with the specific reorder policies composing the overall inventory control system. However, the effectiveness of inventory classification and control system is strictly interrelated. That is to say, different classification approaches could show different performance if applied to a different set of reorder policies, and vice versa. Furthermore, when the cost structure is subjected to uncertainty, a pure cost‐based analysis of the inventory control system could be corrupted. This paper presents a multicriteria framework for the concurrent selection of the item classification approach and the inventory control system through a discrete‐event simulation approach. The key performance indicators provided by the simulator (i.e., average holding value, average number of backorders, and average number of emitted orders) are indicative of the multidimensional effectiveness of the adopted inventory control system when coupled with a specific classification approach. By this way, a multicriteria problem arises, where the alternatives are given by exhaustively coupling the item classes, which are generated by different classification approaches, with the reorder policies composing the inventory system. An analytical hierarchy process is then used for selecting the best alternative, as well as for evaluating the effect of the weights assigned to the key performance indicators through a sensitivity analysis. This approach has been validated in a real case study with a company operating in the field of electrical resistor manufacturing, with a view of facilitating the management of items showing intermittent demand.     

中医院市场定位的两难选择及其对策

中医院的市场定位处于两难选择之中:中医药技术的潜在优势与现实局限性的矛盾、中医院管理者的价值取向与现实窘况的矛盾、中医院发展历史沉淀与市场竞争的矛盾、政府的中医药政策自身存在的矛盾等。这些矛盾涉及多方行为和利益主体,必须深化改革,以实现中医院的良性发展。     

公共卫生的作用及政府职责

从20世纪人类健康的进步的贡献和2003年非典危机的爆发,都反映了公共卫生的作用,公共卫生投入对国家社会经济发展和政治及宏观经济的稳定具有不可忽视的作用和不可取代的贡献.理论研究和实证研究揭示了政府公共卫生投入与健康指标的关联,政府为全体人民提供基本公共卫生产品的必要性.而政府提供基本公共卫生服务和保障基本公共卫生产品供给的重要前提是确保政府预算对公共卫生的投入,使其对人民健康产生正向的积极促进作用.明确各级政府在公共卫生中的责任,实行分级管理和考核监督机制,是急待研究和解决的问题.进一步加大政府对公共卫生政府投入水平和改善投入机制,是今后强化中国政府公共卫生职责的一个突破口.     

连续性公共物品困境中信息结构对决策行为的影响

选取240名大学二年级的学生,通过局域网信息反馈,进行了模拟投资的小组实验。结果发现,1、在连续性公共物品困境和自协调序列规则下,先前决策者的合作行为在决策的早期和中期起到了明显的榜样示范作用,并导致后续决策者的合作行为增加;2、这种示范作用在决策后期不起作用,被试出于搭便车或者担心自己利益受损的心理会表现出较高的竞争行为;3、先前决策者的竞争行为在整个决策过程中都起到明显的示范作用,使后续决策者的合作率保持在较低的水平;4、在没有任何信息反馈的情况下,被试倾向于在初期就做出投资决策,并表现出一定程度的合作行为。     

我国传染病防治面临的形势与对策

长期以来由于种种原因对新发传染病和再发传染病防控方面存在许多问题,比如认识上不足、缺乏投入、设施陈旧、专业人员短缺、农村是薄弱环节等,在SARS暴发过程中表现更为严重,迫切地要求建立一完整套的、科学的、符合中国国情的应对各种新发或再发传染病的公共卫生应急系统.