近代中国武术传播的新特点

由于社会经济生活的急剧变化和政治军事斗争的需要,近代中国武术的传播特点相应地发生了变化,形成了传播地域扩大化、传播对象大众化、传播渠道多元化和传承关系开放化的新特点。这些新特点的出现,有力地推动了武术在近代的广泛传播。     

二十一世纪中国武术亟待解决的问题

本文从观念、目的和定位以及散手规则等方面分析了在武术的继承和发展中存在的问题,认为武术改革首先要转变观念,明确目的定好位;其次把武术整合,对其规则进行修改,取消竞技比赛形式。这是中国武术走向二十一世纪,走向世界的先决条件。     

Empirical research in progressive education

While the development of empirical psychology was helpful for research in several fields of schooling, progressive education gained much from the diverse branches of child studies in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. There are several outstanding examples like G. Stanley Hall, Jean Piaget and the Geneva Institute, and the German movement of “experimental pedagogy.” Progressive education was not constituted out of empirical research, but was in need of empirical research to secure and stabilize public interest in “new education”. Research activities were launched to secure older theories of child orientation, most of them referring to Rousseau and the “naturalistic approach” to education. Without this tradition progressive education could not have been developed.     

Rationality, Information Search and Choice in Higher Education: Evidence from Greece

The paper presents the findings of a study of the decision-making process which precedes the choice of a university in Greece. Specifically, the degree of rationality exhibited by prospective students is assessed in an attempt to provide a test for the economic approach to the explanation of human behaviour. Information search is used as an indication of rationality and measured through a survey conducted among 220 university students in the academic year 2003/2004. The findings provide weak support for the rationality postulate in that they indicate that more than 40% of respondents could not be classified as information seekers. Logistic regression analysis was used in order to identify characteristics associated with the propensity to engage in information search: high socioeconomic status students, students who perceived the decision as important, and students who had acquired information prior to the choice of a university were found to be more likely to engage in information search. The paper draws attention to the limitations of the economic rational man model of human behaviour and discusses the implications of the findings for the promotional strategy of universities.     

e-Government adoption model based on theory of planned behavior: Empirical validation

The e-Government phenomenon has become more important with the ever increasing number of implementations worldwide. A model explaining the e-Government adoption and the related measurement instrument – a survey – had been developed and validated in this study. In a post Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) approach, theory of planned behavior (TPB) was extended to fit the requirements of e-Government context. The adoption of student loans service of the higher education student loans and accommodation association of Turkey (KYK) was investigated to obtain data for empirical validation. The instrument was administered to over four-hundred students and partial least squares path modeling was employed to analyze the data. The results indicate that the model was an improvement over TAM in terms of predictive power. The constructs trust, perceived behavioral control and attitudes successfully explained the intention to use an e-Government service. The findings presented in this study provide useful insights for researchers and policy makers when dealing with e-Government services.     

Critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka

This paper aims to identify the critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka from the perspective of the delivery of public services and the efficiency of public organizations. To fulfill these aims of the study, a conceptual framework is developed based on a comprehensive review of the related literature by considering the delivery of public services and the efficiency of public organizations. With the collected survey data from Sri Lanka, the conceptual framework is empirically tested and validated by performing a confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling. The study shows that the delivery of quality information and services, user-orientation of information and services, efficiency and responsiveness of public organizations, and contributions of public organizations to the environmental sustainability are the critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka. As the first study in examining the critical factors for evaluating the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka, the findings of the study would be of practical significance to the continuous development of e-government in Sri Lanka and other countries in the world.     

Differential contribution of specific working memory components to mathematics achievement in 2nd and 3rd graders

The contribution of the three core components of working memory (WM) to the development of mathematical skills in young children is poorly understood. The relation between specific WM components and Numerical Operations, which emphasize computation and fact retrieval, and Mathematical Reasoning, which emphasizes verbal problem solving abilities in 48 2nd and 50 3rd graders was assessed using standardized WM and mathematical achievement measures. For 2nd graders, the central executive and phonological components predicted Mathematical Reasoning skills; whereas the visuo-spatial component predicted both Mathematical Reasoning and Numerical Operations skills in 3rd graders. This pattern suggests that the central executive and phonological loop facilitate performance during early stages of mathematical learning whereas visuo-spatial representations play an increasingly important role during later stages. We propose that these changes reflect a shift from prefrontal to parietal cortical functions during mathematical skill acquisition. Implications for learning and individual differences are discussed.     

User relevance criteria choices and the information search process

Relevance judgments occur within an information search process, where time, context and situation can impact the judgments. The determination of relevance is dependent on a number of factors and variables which include the criteria used to determine relevance. The relevance judgment process and the criteria used to make those judgments are manifestations of the cognitive changes which occur during the information search process.Understanding why these relevance criteria choices are made, and how they vary over the information search process can provide important information about the dynamic relevance judgment process. This information can be used to guide the development of more adaptive information retrieval systems which respond to the cognitive changes of users during the information search process.The research data analyzed here was collected in two separate studies which examined a subject’s relevance judgment over an information search process. Statistical analysis was used to examine these results and determine if there were relationships between criteria selections, relevance judgments, and the subject’s progression through the information search process. Findings confirm and extend findings of previous studies, providing strong statistical evidence of an association between the information search process and the choices of relevance criteria by users, and identifying specific changes in the user preferences for specific criteria over the course of the information search process.     

Temporal Trends of Malondialdehyde in Stored Human Plasma

Malondialdehyde (MDA) is widely used as oxidative stress biomarker in biomedical research. Plasma is stored in deep freezers generally till analysis. Effect of such storage on MDA values, which may be variable and prolong, was incidentally observed in the ongoing study which is to estimate oxidative stress with oral iron. Plasma from blood samples of pregnant women (20–30 years age) in third trimester of singleton pregnancy (n = 139), consuming oral iron tablets was stored at −20 °C with intention of MDA estimation, as soon as possible. However logistic problems led this storage for prolonged and variable period (1–708 days). When values of MDA estimated using “Ohkawa” 79 method and readings were plotted against time to check the temporal effect, it showed a hyperbolic curve. Standard deviation (SD) was lowest when samples were tested within 3 weeks time. The samples analyzed within 3 weeks had mean ± SD value of 31.59 ± 26.11 μmol/L, while 123.7 ± 93.97 and 366.5 ± 189.8 μmol/L for samples stored for 1–3 and 4 months to 1 year respectively. Mean ± SD were 539.9 ± 196.8 in the samples store for more than a year. Rate of change in values was also lowest (0.0433 μmol/L/day) in the samples tested within first 3 weeks, which rose to 1.2 μmol/L/day during 3 month’s storage. This rate peaked at storage of 120 days (1.87 μmol/L/day) and fell to 0.502 μmol/L/day in the second year of storage. It is concluded that at −20 °C, only 3 weeks of storage time should be considered valid for fairly acceptable stability in MDA values.     

诱惑、耻辱与责任——欧洲18—20世纪关于非婚生儿童父母的立法

16至20世纪,欧洲未婚母亲和非婚生子女的法律地位发生了巨大的变化。最关键的变革发生在19世纪,这一是由于婚外生育的剧增,二是由于人们对贫困、财产、个人权利、国家职责的新思考。许多欧洲国家取消了"认父"程序:从此,只有主动承认亲子关系的父亲才对孩子负有义务,于是这一负担完全落在了女性身上。20世纪初,受女权运动的冲击,不少国家改革了相关立法,斯堪的纳维亚国家走得最远。另一些国家则到20世纪60年代才取消了对未婚母亲及其子女的歧视。在欧洲的宏观背景下考察瑞士的辩论,并特别关注两性间的社会关系。同时,也对瑞士四个村庄司法户籍档案进行案例分析,体味其中的个体境遇,量化法律改革的社会影响。