Bücher von Jing Chen

This book highlights reliable, valid and practical testing and assessment of interpreting, presenting important developments in China, where testing and assessment have long been a major concern for interpreting educators and researchers, but have remained largely under-reported. The book not only offers theoretical insights into potential issues and problems undermining interpreting assessment, but also describes useful measurement models to address such concerns. Showcasing the latest Chinese research to create rubrics-referenced rating scales, enhance formative assessment practice, and explore (semi-)automated assessment, the book is a valuable resource for educators, trainers and researchers, enabling to gain a better understanding of interpreting testing and assessment as both a worthwhile endeavor and a promising research area.

This volume contains the 37 papers presented at the 9th International Con- rence on Real-Time and Embedded Computing Systems and Applications (RT- CSA 2003). RTCSA is an international conference organized for scientists and researchers from both academia and industry to hold intensive discussions on advancing technologies topics on real-time systems, embedded systems, ubiq- tous/pervasive computing, and related topics. RTCSA 2003 was held at the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. Paper submissions were well distributed over the various aspects of real-time computing and embedded system technologies. There were more than 100 participants from all over the world. The papers, including 28 regular papers and 9 short papers are grouped into thecategoriesofscheduling,networkingandcommunication,embeddedsystems, pervasive/ubiquitous computing, systems and architectures, resource mana- ment, ?le systems and databases, performance analysis, and tools and de- lopment. The grouping is basically in accordance with the conference program. Earlier versions of these papers were published in the conference proceedings. However, some papers in this volume have been modi?ed or improved by the authors, in various aspects, based on comments and feedback received at the conference. It is our sincere hope that researchers and developers will bene?t from these papers. We would like to thank all the authors of the papers for their contribution. We thank the members of the program committee and the reviewers for their excellent work in evaluating the submissions. We are also very grateful to all the members of the organizing committees for their help, guidance and support.

The mathematical theory enables us to systematically measure the effectiveness of different policies and institutional structures at varying levels of resource abundance and cost.The theory presented in this book shows that there do not exist universally optimal policies or institutional structures.

This book develops an informational theory to account for the coexistence of China's exceptionally resilient authoritarianism and its high decentralization. The nuanced information contained in citizens' complaints, which are filed through the petition system, helps to sustain China's decentralized authoritarianism in three important ways. First, petitions help to alleviate the information asymmetry problem that arises when the central government has less information than lower level governments do. When studying citizens' petitions, higher level governments can obtain valuable and accurate information about local officials' performance in policy implementation, public goods provision, and corruption. Higher level governments need this information in order to effectively utilize the cadre management system to reward good performance and punish malpractice. The result of this interaction is the PRC's relatively high quality of governance and effective control of local officials. There is also a second way in which citizens' petitions help the government to overcome the dictator's dilemma that arises when an authoritarian regime is uncertain about how much support it really enjoys among its citizens. Citizens' specific grievances are revealed in these petitions and are mostly addressed in their beginning stages. When citizens' complaints are rooted in central policy, they set the agenda for policy change in order to maintain social order. There is yet a third benefit conferred upon the PRC by the petition system. Thanks to the petition system, the central government can present itself as the ally of citizens when it addresses the matters raised by their petitions. As a result, the petition system grants the central government an opportunity to hold local officials accountable, scapegoat local authorities, divide citizens and local officials, and justly claim all the credit when its policies succeed. This helps to build citizens' trust in their central government and reinforces its legitimacy in their eyes. In Huntington's terms, the Chinese Communist Party institutionalizes mass support by addressing citizens' grievances expressed through the channel of communication provided by the petition system. In this sense, the complaints of citizens can be very useful tools for regime maintenance. The author substantiates these points with case studies and statistical analysis.