基于改进IDI指标体系的G20成员国信息通信技术发展水平研究

在国际电信联盟曾使用的信息通信技术(ICT)发展指数(IDI)基础上,提出改进的信息通信技术发展指数。通过分析2007—2020年二十国集团(G20)的19个成员国的IDI指数和ICT相关指标揭示了G20成员国在信息通信技术发展方面的特点和差异性。分析发现G20成员国信息通信技术发展水平均有较大幅度的提升,国家之间的信息通信技术发展差距逐渐缩小,但增长速度和发展水平仍存在较大差异;G20成员国中韩国、日本、法国、德国和英国的信息通信技术发展水平最高,美国、加拿大、澳大利亚、沙特阿拉伯和俄罗斯的信息通信技术发展居于G20成员国的中上水平,意大利、阿根廷、中国、巴西、土耳其的发展居于中下水平,墨西哥、南非、印度尼西亚和印度的信息通信技术发展水平较低。

当好“五大员”充分发挥好桥梁纽带作用——学习中国天主教第七届代表会议精神的点滴体会

刚刚结束的中国天主教第七届代表会议，是新世纪初中国天主教继往开来、与时俱进、团结奋进的一次盛会。最近，我们通过会议精神的传达学习，深感：在新的历史条件下，爱国会的任务将更加艰巨，作用更加重要。爱国会工作人员要真正肩负起时代赋予的历史责任和光荣使命，充分发挥好桥梁纽带作用，我们认为就必须当好“五大员”，塑树新形象。

A Study on consumers＇ continuing to use online group-buying platforms： The impact of price performance expectations

In this study, we aim to understand the characteristics of online group-buying consumers and to investigate salient factors which influence the continuance intention of online group-buying platforms （OGBP） to bridge this knowledge gap. An expectation-confirmation model of information systems （IS） continuance is adapted to construct a research model in online group-buying contexts. A total of 289 complete and valid responses were collected. Our findings contribute to academics and practitioners in two ways： Firstly, our respondents show that they are young （93% of the respondents＇ ages range between 19 and 28 years old）, female （88% of the respondents）, and thrifty （82% of the respondents＇ transaction amounts are below US$16）. Secondly, based on our results, price performance expectations have a direct impact on confirmation. In addition, in contrast to the IS continuance model （Bhattacherjee, 2001）, the effect of perceived usefulness on satisfaction is not supported. Thus, in online group-buying settings, confirmation is the key antecedent of satisfaction. Satisfaction and perceived usefulness are significantly associated with OGBP continuance intention. Consequently, in addition to offering a wide assortment of merchandise and a convenient online shopping experience to enhance customers＇ perceived usefulness of OGBP, OGBP managers should aim low-price marketing strategies at this female, young, thrifty and price-sensitive segment to transcend consumers＇ price expectations and attract consumers＇ continued intention to visit OGBP.

Assessing Disclosure Quality： A Methodological Issue

The voluntary disclosure studies conducted until today, in social accounting and related fields, use different approaches to evaluate the so-called ＂disclosure quality＂. Disclosure quality is not so easy to measure, and it is derived from the application of different methodologies. In particular, the methodologies to assess the level of disclosure could be classified as subjective or objective. To the first category belong all the ＂tools＂ that are used directly without relying on the analysis of the original source of the information studies （Imhoff, 1992; Coleman ＆ Eccles, 1997; Welker, 1995）. The objective measurements used to assess the disclosure quality are, instead, based on the direct study of the original information source in order to obtain the information required （Krippendorff, 1980; Weber, 1985; Botosan, 1997; Lang ＆ Lundholm, 2000）. The aim of the paper is to give scholars and researchers a brief framework to understand the different methodologies used in accounting literature to assess the disclosure quality, providing examples of the application of the same in different research contexts.

Malaysian Teacher Trainees＇ Competencies of Accessing, Evaluating, and Applying Information Ethically in Research Process

The case study attempts to discover with certainty the competency of accessing, evaluating and applying information in research process acquired by undergraduate trainees of Malaysian Teacher Education Institute in the northern region of Peninsula Malaysia. Considered as highly important skills that trainee teachers have to acquire a comprehensive understanding of information literacy to pursue a research. Yet, it is a pivotal fact indicated by recent researchers that most future teachers often enter teaching without the necessary information literacy skills and knowledge in research process. The scope of study is based on full-time final year undergraduate trainee teachers for the Educational Degree Programme doing their school based action research in the states of Kedah, Perlis, and Penang. The study analyzes problems and issues faced by these trainee teachers tied up to information literacy competency in doing research process. The study investigates trainees＇ competencies of accessing, evaluating, and applying information ethically in their research process. The findings hope to give insights to stake holders on the ways to move forward in terms of needs, process and outcomes in accordance with the Malaysian National Information Literacy Agenda.

GIS for Operative Support

GIS （geographic information systems） is often used for planning purposes in forestry. This is mainly used to give directives for the operators to cut the trees. And nowadays, it is also used for marking of areas with high environmental values where considerations should be made. The minor used techniques is to incorporate soil information maps as an overlay to give information to forest machine operators where less good trafficability is to be expected, especially after a heavy rain. By marking areas with bad bearing capacity, the operators may save both time and money, and do not bog down with the machine. When the soils bearing capacity is less than 0.7 MPa and the ground pressure of the machine is more than 80 kPa, either smaller machines must be used or bogey tracks should be used to decrease the risk for getting stuck or causing severe rutting. By choosing good types of bogey tracks both rutting and fuel consumption will be decreased for the health of forest land and the contractor.

Embedded Staff Identity Acquisition and Management System Based on Information Button and CAN Bus

Considering special working conditions of under ground coal mines,traditional IC cards,magnetic cards or radio frequency cards do not work well in entrance guard and work attendance check system because of inconvenient carry,damaged easily and unsuitable in severe surroundings.So an access and attendance system for mine which is more firmly,durable and good performance is designed using new intelligent information carrier-iButton(Information Button).For iButton has a stainless steel shell,which make it has the advantages of anti-strike,antirust,anti-magnetism and anti-folded,the reliability of the system is enhanced greatly.

Substitution or Complementarity Between ＂Soft＂ Information and ＂Hard＂ Information： Why and Which Effect on Bank Profitability？

The Basel II committee sets their customers. This new up directives encouraging banks to use internal scores in order to assess the risk of form of information competes with the existing ones. Small and medium-sized enterprises （SMEs） are most concerned by these new stakes, due to the lack of transparency. The aim of this paper is to understand the determinants of the choice between substitution and complementarity between the two types of information： ＂soft＂ and ＂hard＂, to test a potential effect of this choice on the banking performance and to describe which variables are involved in the decision-making process. The originality of this work is to try to quantify the information costs and to use it as a variable which is affecting the adopted choice.

Abilities and Competences of Students and Seafarers for Education Supported by Modem ICT

The purpose of this paper was to find out whether the higher education has met the necessary requirements for the implementation of the ICT system, in particular the e-learning system in higher education of seafarers. The goal was to explore to what extent the technical and organisational prerequisites for introducing the system have been fulfilled at the very institution--E-learning system provider, and to what extent the full-time maritime students and part-time students-seafarers are ready and trained to adopt such a system. In order to gather insights and make conclusions, the analytical method and the survey of students were used. A total of 930 full-time and part-time students （seafarers） were surveyed. The goal of these surveys was to find out the educational needs of both student groups, as well as their technical preconditions （e.g., having a PC at work or at home, access to the intemet, and the like） and competencies （e.g., computer literacy） that are necessary for active involvement in the e-learning system. A particularly interesting part of the research tackled the psychological predisposition of students, i.e., whether they were willing to use the system at all. A special part of the research was focused on issues regarding the costs and the available time that the students/seafarers have for using the e-learning system. The research has revealed that there are neither obstacles nor initial constraints for the implementation of the e-learning system in education of maritime students and seafarers at the University of Split. Moreover, the students have a positive attitude towards the e-learning system, and most of them are very enthusiastic about its implementation. The scientific contribution of this paper is provided by an analytical model exploring and defining the necessary prerequisites for introducing the e-learning system. The advantage of the model lies in its wide and multi-disciplinary approach to all these prerequisites, ranging from psychological to purely technical, financial, time, organisational and other aspects. An interesting issue is the question of＂good will＂ for launching such systems at the institutions which obviously meet all necessary prerequisites for their introduction, including the enthusiasm of their students and teachers. The case study shows that, apparently, the university management and the wider community have not recognised many a benefit of the e-learning system. This sounds paradoxical as it is precisely the very academic community that should act as the designer and the initiator of social changes, in social systems in general and in education systems in particular.

Managers and Information Society： A Croatian Experience

In modem society information has become one of the most important resources, playing a crucial role in everyday life. As a result, information technology （IT） is now an indispensable tool in the business world, which has a direct impact on company competitiveness and performance. With all the changes in business environment there is also a dramatic shift in the way the management functions. In order to efficiently perform their tasks and thus rise up to the challenges of the information society, managers need not only to master appropriate IT skills, but also to understand the processes launched by the information revolution. The aim of this paper was to determine the extent to which Croatian managers are prepared for the information society. In addition to the data regarding the level of IT equipment at managers＇ disposal, the paper presents the results on computer usage, self-assessment of IT competencies, and the level of acceptance of modern technologies. Although satisfactory attainment has been recorded in some areas, the results of the analysis reveal that additional effort should be devoted to further improve computer and information literacy of Croatian managers.

RANDOM SETS: A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK FOR MULTISOURCE INFORMATION FUSION

The more diverse the ways and means of information acquisition are,the more complex and various the types of information are. The qualities of available information are usually uncertain,vague,imprecise,incomplete,and so on. However,the information is modeled and fused traditionally in particular,name some of the known theories: evidential,fuzzy sets,possibilistic,rough sets or conditional events,etc. For several years,researchers have explored the unification of theories enabling the fusion of multisource information and have finally considered random set theory as a powerful mathematical tool. This paper attempts to overall review the close relationships between random set theory and other theories,and introduce recent research results which present how different types of information can be dealt with in this unified framework. Finally,some possible future directions are discussed.

Uses of Social Networking Sites and Satisfactions Achieved by Emirati Youth： A Field Study on a Sample of Sharjah University Students

The study, throughout the usage of Emirati youth for the social networking sites and satisfactions achieved, illustrated that the nature of those networks is considered a rapidly developing method of communication, which is accompanied by attempts to impose a number of short abbreviated vocabulary to be used among the youth. Since social networking sites represent one of the most significant tremendous development aspects of information technology, which reached its peak during the last decade, the researcher considered the importance of conducting this study in order to know the impact of social networking sites on the youth through Intemet, blogs and chat rooms, as well as attempting to confront them and making them aware of their importance in their daily lives. Accordingly, the study has focused on a random category of youth, whose ages are ranging between 17-21 years old of university students, as being the highest category of usage. Results revealed the following： A high percentage of Emirati youth 77.5% mentioned that they ＂always＂ use those sites; the percentage of males, who ＂always＂ use social media reached 38.5% while the percentage of females reached 61, since the meaningful value reached 0.05〉0.044, which indicated that WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are the most commonly used social media by the study individuals. Most of the study individuals use the social networking sites daily 84%, and there are statistically significant differences between males and females in terms of the times of using social media. A high percentage of the Emirati youth uses Internet for more than three hours daily; especially in the evenings, and there are not statistically significant differences between males and females in terms of the most common periods in which social media are used, and the most common age groups of using social media from one year and more range between 17-20. ＂Home＂ is the most favorite place of using social media （85.40% mentioned that）. Most of the study individuals can make a balance between spending time on Internet and spending time with people outside the world of Internet. The percentage of those, who mentioned that social networking sites affected them positively, was higher than the percentage of the ones, who mentioned that the social media affected them negatively. Among the most prominent usages of social media by the Emirati youth are： staying informed about news and current events, while most of them focused on chatting, followed by sharing photos and images. Most of the sample of study mentioned that the youth are just readers, who comment on what is shared and posted on the social media. The most prominent motives of the Emirati youth for using social media are represented in obtaining information, and communicating with others, which came on top of the motives relevant to the usage of social media, followed by entertainment, education, followed by various motives, including routine etc. Some of the most significant satisfactions achieved through using the social networking sites by the Emirati youth are entertainment and spending leisure time with others.

The Modem Business Reporting Dimension Including the Reports of the Supervisory Board

This paper is of conceptual nature. The considerations are based on literature studies and empirical research carried out in 2009 and 2011 among the members of supervisory board in Polish public companies. The purpose of this article is to present a new business reporting model extended by the supervisory board＇s reports. The part of this article, which is based on the literature research, clarifies the scope of modem business reporting, being a part of a company＇s information system. This article includes management commentary proposal prepared by the International Accounting Standards Board （IASB）. The authors proposed a supplement to the management commentary which is a global model of disclosures accompanying financial statements. According to the concept presented in this article, information prepared and disclosed by managers in financial statements and management commentaries are parts of a larger reporting system-corporate reporting supply chain. This paper mainly proposes an extension of a modem company＇s information system with a new channel of communication, such as supervisory board＇s reports. This article explains the role of a supervisory board associated with the conception. In the prepared conception, supervisory board becomes an active reviewer of management action. Moreover, it is also an active participant in the chain of corporate reports. Deliberations presented in this article are the voices in the debate on the shape of the modem business reporting.

Comparative Data of Millipedes＇ Distribution in Southern Region of Albania

This is a study about the zoographical and taxonomy aspects of Diplopoda class in Albania. Based on the published studies of foreign and Albanian researchers, we have analyzed the current level of information about the distribution of this class in Albania. In this study we mainly focused in the Southern Region of Albania by assessing the biodiversity of the diplopods. The study area covers the Ionian coast and parts of Vjosa river valley. This study has made use of determination key of Mauries J. color, number of segments, number of paired limbs to distinguish the different species. The collected data are compared with previous findings by Verhoeff （1901）, Attems （1929）, Manfredi （1945）, Mauriès, Go lovatch, Stoev （1997） etc. The distribution range of the collected species is presented according to the national or Balkan level. Based on the recent studies and the geographical distribution of diplopods, we expect to find approximately 150 species of 50 genres in Albania.

Usefulness and Effectiveness of Related Party Transactions （RPTs） Disclosure： Empirical Evidence From Italy

Related party transactions （RPTs） can be used by corporate insiders （e.g., managers, controlling shareholders） to expropriate corporate outsiders （e.g., minority shareholders）. We argue that effective disclosure of RPTs can eliminate or at least reduce expropriation phenomena by letting corporate outsiders assess the fairness of the transactions and identify the underlying conflicts of interest. We consider a sample of large RPTs carried out by listed corporations in Italy, a country that has been affected by significant corporate scandals in recent years. In particular, we analyse the content of several compulsory informative documents, required by CONSOB （the Italian Securities and Exchange Commission）, concerning large RPTs. The focus of our content analysis is on the ＂warnings＂ sections of these documents that should convey clear and comprehensive information on potential risks and conflicts of interest. Our empirical results show that, while the ＂warnings＂ sections of the studied documents generally contain all the information required by existing rules, the depth of the information provided is often unlikely to be sufficient to communicate the implications of the RPTs. Thus, readers may not find the disclosed information adequate to evaluate the fairness of the transactions. Moreover, visual representations are rarely used in the informative documents. The use of such representations could allow companies to convey the structures and features of complex RPTs in a simpler and more direct way.

Experiential Learning with Internal Audit Service Projects： Students＇ Perceptions

Students are very familiar with their own universities and also are interested in improving their alma maters. The purpose of this research is to share insights about a project that can be used for both traditional Auditing courses and the Internal Auditing course. The project requires that students ＂audit＂ certain elements of the universities＇ non-confidential finances as well as perform operational and compliance techniques. The project creates synergy for experiential learning and improvement of university operations. Examples of educational issues that were improved with the operational audits are： （1） better information posted for office hours and class times; （2） better scripting for professors＇ and staff＇s voicemail messages; and （3） campus safety improvements. The students also seemed more enthusiastic about auditing and happy to contribute to the excellence of their university.

Valuation Standards Under the Implementation Process of IFRS

In this paper, the authors focus on valuation standards as a result of the mandatory effect of the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS）, and more precisely on the context of fair value. The paper assesses the impact concentrate on the IFRS adopter countries and at the same time on the Business Valuation Standards （BVS）, because they provide consistence and comparability, in time and in space, to the valuation even different implementation levels of the accounting information system （AIS）. The results corroborate that rules and practices are not sufficient conditions to create a widespread accounting language, and international institutional standards play an essential role in framing financial reporting characteristics, in order to assist financial analysts and accountants to implement the accounting system and strategies, as well as, on firms to adopt the best valuation practices on their disclosures. Also, the authors recommend that the International Accounting Standards Board [IASB], the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC], the European Commission [EC] and valuation agencies should now devote their efforts to harmonizing valuation standards rather than harmonizing accounting standards.

Modern CMC Technology for English Language Learning： Blessing or Nightmare？

Since the last two decades of the past century, technology, more specifically computers, have developed so impressively that it has dramatically changed every aspect of society, especially education. The Computer Mediated Communication （CMC） technology is therefore radically discussed by researchers for its great impacts on English language learning. Based upon thorough literature review and practical survey, this paper demonstrates modem CMC technology and textism phenomenon and makes an analysis of its significant impacts on English language learning. It aims to answer the typical blessing-or-nightmare question, and shed some light on the research of modern information communication technolo^v in lanwaa^e education.

Packaging

CCPIT Packaging Industry Office mainly provides services in the following aspects:communi- cating among CCPIT and de- partments and sub-committees of China Packaging Federation,and coordinating working relations among departments of Packaging Industry Office,and

Cognitive Heuristics and Dual Process Models A Perspective for Management Accounting （MA）？

Classical management accounting （MA） Focusing on the facilitating perspective, focuses on decision facilitating and influencing （Demski ＆ Feltham, 1976）. MA has to provide information to managers and depending on the problem complexity, they have to solve problems in a dyadic way. A dual process model, the heuristic systematic model （HSM）, expands this so-called manager-accountant-dyad and shows different cases of actual human information processing. Managers and accountants either process systematically or heuristically. So far, many concepts have been designed in relation to the normative concept of the economical rational principle. Consequently, recent research only uses systematic information processing, based on the principle of the economic man. In this paper, a decision-behavior oriented approach tries to describe actual decision makers such as managers and accountants and shows new possibilities within MA. Therefore, the potential of heuristic information processing is analyzed, based on the phenomenon of ecological rationality as one shape of bounded rationality. Thus, different cognitive heuristics in business economics are identified and analyzed. Furthermore, the outstanding performance of heuristics compared with more complex calculations is shown. Unfortunately, these findings have been limited to marketing and investments so far. Significant research is needed, regarding conditions for applications and success factors of heuristics in business economics. New empirical findings have to be explicitly transferred to MA.