Contrastive analysis of keywords in discourses: intégration and integration in French and German discourses about migration

This article suggests a theoretical and methodological framework for a systematic contrastive discourse analysis across languages and discourse communities through keywords, constituting a lexical approach to discourse analysis which is considered to be particularly fruitful for comparative analysis. We use a corpus assisted methodology, presuming meaning to be constituted, revealed and constrained by collocation environment. We compare the use of the keyword intégration and Integration in French and German public discourses about migration on the basis of newspaper corpora built from two French and German newspapers from 1998 to 2011. We look at the frequency of these keywords over the given time span, group collocates into thematic categories and discuss indicators of discursive salience by comparing the development of collocation profiles over time in both corpora as well as the occurrence of neologisms and compounds based on intégration/Integration.

Lithographic Technology Students in the Lab

Students are from the Lithography Department of the New York Trade School are shown working in a lab. Black and white photograph that has some writing along the outer edge.

Common currency and economic integration in Mercosur

A América Latina tem uma longa história de tentativas de alcançar uma integração regional, embora seu sucesso tenha sido modesto. Este trabalho procura mostrar que isso essencialmente ocorre não tanto pelas práticas protecionistas nos vários países, mas devido à falta de uma moeda comum, ou, pelo menos, de uma taxa de câmbio rigorosamente administrada. Os autores analisaram o critério da área ótima de moeda que mostra ser prudente aumentar a integração econômica antes de tentar implementar a coordenação das taxas de câmbio. Entretanto, nós mostramos que no Mercosul já existem as condições mínimas para começar a trabalhar nessa direção. A diminuição da instabilidade cambial pode encorajar a entrada de investimentos e o comércio nas economias latino-americanas. Os autores também desenvolveram um exercício simplificado para entender como poderia ser viável alcançar estabilidade da taxa de câmbio em nos dois maiores países da região (Brasil e Argentina) e avançar na adoção de uma moeda comum.

Equity and Efficiency in Education: motivations and targets

The recently released "Educational PAC" attempts to place basic education at the center of the social debate. We have subsidized this debate, offering a diagnosis of how different education levels can impact individuals' lives through broad and easily interpreted indicators. Initially, we analyze how much each educational level reaches the poorest population. For example, how are those in the bottom strata of income distribution benefited by childcare centers, private secondary education, public university or adult education. The next step is to quantify the return of educational actions, such as their effects on employability and an individual's wages, and even health as perceived by the individual, be that individual poor, middle class or elite. The next part of the research presents evidence of how the main characters in education, aka mothers, fathers and children, regard education. The site available with the research presents a broad, user-friendly database, which will allow interested parties to answer their own questions relative to why people do not attend school, the time spent in the educational system and returns to education, which can all be cross-sectioned with a wide array of socio-demographic attributes (gender, income, etc.) and school characteristics (is it public, are school meals offered, etc.) to find answers to: why do young adults of a certain age not attend school? Why do they miss classes? How long is the school day? Aside from the whys and hows of teaching, the research calculates the amount of time spent in school, resulting from a combination between absence rates, evasion raters and length of the school day. The study presents ranks of indicators referring to objective and subjective aspects of education, such as the discussion of the advantages and care in establishing performance based incentives that aim at guiding the states in the race for better educational indicators.

Is 'tagging' a rationale for affirmative action in education?

In this paper, we try to rationalize the existence of one of the most common affirmative action policies: educational quotas. We model a two period economy with asymmetric information and endogenous human capital formation. Individuals may be from two different groups in the population, where each group is defined by an observable and exogenous characteristic. The distribution of skills differ across groups. We introduce educational quotas into the model by letting the planner reduce the effort cost that a student from one of the groups has to endure in order to be accepted into a university. Affirmative action policies can be interpreted as a form of ``tagging" since group characteristics are used as proxies for productivity. We find that although educational quotas are usually efficient, they need not subsidize the education of the low skill group.

The failure of early-stage technology startups in Brazil: a study about the contributing factors to the early-death of startups between 2009 and 2014 in Southeastern Brazil

This research aimed to find out which are the main factors that lead technology startups to fail. The study focused on companies located in the Southeast region of Brazil that operated between 2009 and 2014. In the beginning, a review of the literature was done to have a better understanding of basic concepts of entrepreneurship as well as modern techniques for developing entrepreneurship. Furthermore, an analysis of the entrepreneurial scenario in Brazil, with a focus on the Southeast, was also done. After this phase, the qualitative study began, in which 24 specialists from startups were interviewed and asked about which factors were crucial in leading a technology startup to fail. After analyzing the results, four main factors were identified and these factors were validated through a quantitative survey. A questionnaire was then formulated based on the answers from the respondents and distributed to founders and executives of startups, which both failed and succeeded. The questionnaire was answered by 56 companies and their answers were treated with the factor analysis statistical method to check the validity of the questionnaire. Finally, the logistical regression method was used to know the extent to which the factors led to the startups’ failure. In the end, the results obtained suggest that the most significant factor that leads technology startups in southeastern Brazil to fail are problems with interpersonal relationship between partners or investors.

Business process in supply chain integration in sugar and ethanol industry

This article presents the application of a diagnosis method in a Brazilian company from the sugar and ethanol industry to identify the level of supply chain integration. The diagnosis method is based on Cooper, Lambert and Pagh reference model for SCM. The method involves nine referential axes established from the eighth key business processes of the reference model.

The creative and advanced technology economy in Brazil: executive summary

This document brings together in a succinct form the available data about the current state of the Creative and Advanced Technology Economy of Brazil, presents some suggestions for public policies which can contribute to the development of technological and creative activities, and also points to issues to be studied and actions to be carried out in the future.

Customer intimacy strategy in B2B technology businesses in Colombia

The main objective of this Thesis is to analyze Customer Intimacy Strategy in B2B technology businesses in Colombia and the variables that have a direct relationship with it like perception, trust and networking. And how a Customer Intimacy Strategy can affect a company to achieve positive or negative results in an operation, in terms of business opportunities, relations and profitable and sustainable sales if properly managed or mismanaged. With a population of almost 50 million people, GDP average growth of 4.22%(considering 2013 up to 2017), a strategic geographic location in Latin America close to the middle of the region with direct access to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, on the verge to reach a peace agreement ending its long time social and security conflict with the local guerrillas, Colombia is a country with a stable economic present and promising future. But despite the appealing business landscape and opportunities both in number and size, it is a developing economy where firms who are willing to run a startup or who currently have B2B technology operations in this country will find out that uncertainty and mistrust are two of the most critical variables that need to be overcome in order to achieve success. Their relevance will vary from one region to another, but will still be considered of most importance throughout the country. This matter is highly important to B2B technology businesses in Colombia because few firms are aware of the importance of customer intimacy strategy, believing that it is just a matter of social relationships and not considering the diverse number of variables such us perception, trust and networking that compose it. Customer intimacy strategy at the end becomes the main and most relevant source of sales in a B2B technology environment in Colombia.

Power law distribution in education: Effect of economical, teaching, and study conditions in university entrance examination

We studied the statistical distribution of student's performance, which is measured through their marks, in university entrance examination (Vestibular) of UNESP (Universidade Estadual Paulista) with respect to (i) period of study - day versus night period (ii) teaching conditions - private versus public school (iii) economical conditions - high versus low family income. We observed long ubiquitous power law tails in physical and biological sciences in all cases. The mean value increases with better study conditions followed by better teaching and economical conditions. In humanities, the distribution is close to normal distribution with very small tail. This indicates that these power law tails in science subjects axe due to the nature of the subjects themselves. Further and better study, teaching and economical conditions axe more important for physical and biological sciences in comparison to humanities at this level of study. We explain these statistical distributions through Gradually Truncated Power law distributions. We discuss the possible reason for this peculiar behavior.