Research on the Free Trade Zone Policy and the Development of International Logistics at Ports

The port is an important link in the transportation system of international logistics. The paper discusses the issue of a free trace zone policy and the development of international logistics in ports, showing the positive effects of the performance of a free trade zone policy on constructing international logistics hubs, strengthening the transshipment functions of ports and enhancing the competitiveness of the port enterprises.     

The welfare and equity implications of competition in television broadcasting: the role of viewer tastes

This paper studies the behavior of commercial television broadcasters in markets where the distribution of viewer tastes varies. Our results show that a highly “clustered” market enables the broadcaster to offer a program of a popular type but with lower quality (i.e., lower production values) than is the case when viewers have more diffused tastes. We find that viewer equity in the television market (i.e., the percentage of all potential viewers who have at least one program they consider worth watching) and viewer welfare (i.e., total consumer surplus) may not coincide. Depending upon the distribution of viewer tastes and the cost of providing quality programming, the number of broadcasters required to fully cover the market to avoid market failure may be greater than the number of broadcasters that produce greater viewer welfare. The study suggests that regulatory bodies need to pay attention to the distribution pattern of viewer tastes and the broadcasters' desire for return on programming investments, since both factors have important implications for competitive outcomes and viewer well-being.     

Teaching Across Cultures: Interaction of Cultural Causes and Educational Effects

Teaching across cultures as a result of a Fulbright Senior Fellowship is a life-changing event for many Fulbright Fellows. This American author experienced powerful classroom dynamics in teaching her library science students at the University of Botswana during her 1999–2000 Fulbright. Her attempt to restructure a traditional lecture class to a student-centered learning environment created classroom dynamics that forced her to examine her pedagogical beliefs for their evident weaknesses. This ethnographic study reports on her teaching experiences and her analysis of what she discovered in the process, findings that continue to impact her study of teaching and learning.     

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Godard has consistently voiced his disapproval of Spielberg's Schindler's List. Critics have noted this antipathy yet there is currently no detailed analysis of Godard Godard, Jean-Luc and Youssef, Ishaghpour. 2005. Cinema: The Archeology of Film and the Memory of a Century. Trans. JOHN HOWE, New York: Oberg.  [Google Scholar]'s specific objections. This article attempts to remedy this omission. In the first half, the author focuses on the motivation and logic that underpin Spielberg's film, paying particular attention to the qualms expressed in Godard's Éloge de l'amour over the moral and philosophical dubiousness of employing witness testimony as a means of recreating the past in the present. Then, in the second half, the author analyses the politics of identification in a selection of Godard's films to argue that Schindler's List is made ethically palatable for mainstream audiences through the use of manipulative erotic imagery. There, two critiques are brought together to suggest that Godard's primary objection to Schindler's List is that it constitutes an uplifting consideration of the Shoah that precludes a more serious rumination on an event that ruptures the histories of both the cinema and the twentieth century.     

Toward a system of teacher based examinations

Yearly data are collected describing progress in inclusive education. Frequently used criteria are the percentages of students attending special schooling or percentages of students officially labelled as having special educational needs (SEN). However, both criteria have pitfalls. In this study, the social participation of students was used as a criterion. We compared the social participation of students with SEN to the social participation of typically developing students in three countries, i.e. Norway, the Netherlands and the Flemish region of Belgium. In Norway, 37 seventh-grade students with SEN and 461 classmates; in the Netherlands, 29 seventh-grade students with SEN and 187 classmates; and in Flanders, 43 seventh-grade students with SEN and 469 classmates participated in this study. Peer nominations were used to assess students' peer acceptance in class. Results indicated that, across education systems, students with SEN had more social difficulties compared to typically developing students. Contrary to our initial expectations, the social participation of students with SEN in the more inclusive Norwegian education system did not outperform the social participation of the Dutch and Belgian students with SEN. However, these outcomes are an artefact of the sampling methods used. This confirms the complexity of international comparisons.     

The Impact of Instructional Technology Use,Course Design,and Sex Differences on Students’ Initial Perceptions of Instructor Credibility

This study explores the impact that instructional technology use, course design, and sex differences have on students’ initial perceptions of instructors’ credibility (i.e., competence, trustworthiness, and perceived caring). Participants included 864 students from two Midwestern universities who were randomly assigned to one of 16 experimental conditions (i.e., scenarios) manipulating the use of technology across two types of courses and across two types of instructors (i.e., male and female instructors). Multivariate analyses revealed a two-way interaction effect of technology use by student sex on perceptions of instructor credibility. Follow-up procedures revealed both a curvilinear and a linear effect for technology use on students’ perceptions of instructor competence. In terms of instructor trustworthiness, however, only a curvilinear effect emerged. Finally, the results suggested that technology use has both a curvilinear and a linear effect on perceptions of perceived caring, though the linear effect size was marginal at best. Among the most important implications of this research is the fact that technology use produced the strongest effect size for the perceived caring dimension of instructor credibility.