Firms?: heterogeneity, organizations, power and trade

This paper develops a theory which investigates the two-way relationship between the internaI organization of the firm and market competition.We introduce heterogenous firms with internal hierarchies in a Knlgman (1980) monopolistic competition model of trade. The model simultanously determines firms' organizational choices anel heterogeneity across firms in size and proeluctivity.Ve show that intenlational trade, market size and the toughness of competition in international markets incluce a power struggle in firms which eventually leads to a reorganization of firms towards more decentralized corporate hierarchies.We show further that trade triggers produetivity growth through inter-firm reallocations towards more produetive firms in whieh CEOs have power in firms. At the same time, however trade- induced organizational changes towards fiattened corporate hierarchies lead to a softening of lnternat.ional competition which may contribute a eountervailing negative effect on seetoral productivity.

Can unobserved heterogeneity in farmer ability explain the inverse relationship between farm size and productivity?

The well-known inverse relationship between farm-size and productivity is usually explained in terms of diminishing returns with respect to land and other inputs coupled with various types of market frictions that prevent the efficient allocation of land across farms. We show that even if in the absence of diminishing returns one can provide an alternative explanation for this phenomenon using endogenous occupational choice and heterogeneity with respect to farming skills.

Phase transition of demand explained by the heterogeneity of consumers' intrinsic preferences

In 1991 Gary S. Becker presented A Note on Restaurant Pricing and Other Examples of Social In uences on Price explaining why many successful restaurants, plays, sporting events, and other activities do not raise their prices even with persistent excess demand. The main reason for this is due to the discontinuity of stable demands, which is explained in Becker's (1991) analysis. In the present paper we construct a discrete time stochastic model of socially interacting consumers deciding for one of two establishments. With this model we show that the discontinuity of stable demands, proposed by Gary S. Becker, depends crucially on an additional factor: the dispersion of the consumers' intrinsic preferences for the establishments.

Life Cycle Models, Heterogeneity of Initial Assets,and Wealth Inequality

Life cycle general equilibrium models with heterogeneous agents have a very hard time reproducing the American wealth distribution. A common assumption made in this literature is that all young adults enter the economy with no initial assets. In this article, we relax this assumption – not supported by the data - and evaluate the ability of an otherwise standard life cycle model to account for the U.S. wealth inequality. The new feature of the model is that agents enter the economy with assets drawn from an initial distribution of assets, which is estimated using a non-parametric method applied to data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. We found that heterogeneity with respect to initial wealth is key for this class of models to replicate the data. According to our results, American inequality can be explained almost entirely by the fact that some individuals are lucky enough to be born into wealth, while others are born with few or no assets.

Legal enforcement, collateral and heterogeneity of project financing contracts

This paper employs mechanism design to study the effects of imperfect legal enforcement on optimal scale of projects, borrowing interest rates and the probability of default. The analysis departs from an environment that combines asymmetric information about cash flows and limited commitment by borrowers. Incentive for repayment comes from the possibility of liquidation of projects by a court, but courts are costly and may fail to liquidate. The value of liquidated assets can be used as collateral: it is transferred to the lender when courts liquidate. Examples reveal that costly use of courts may be optimal, which contrasts with results from most limited commitment models, where punishments are just threats, never applied in optimal arrangements. I show that when voluntary liquidation is allowed, both asymmetric information and uncertainty about courts are necessary conditions for legal punishments ever to be applied. Numerical solutions for several parametric specifications are presented, allowing for heterogeneity on initial wealth and variability of project returns. In all such solutions, wealthier individuals borrow with lower interest rates and run higher scale enterprises, which is consistent with stylized facts. The reliability of courts has a consistently positive effect on the scale of projects. However its effect on interest rates is subtler and depends essentially on the degree of curvature of the production function. Numerical results also show that the possibility of collateral seizing allows comovements of the interest rates and the probability of repayment.

Dynamics and Heterogeneity of Pb(II) Binding by SiO2 Nanoparticles in an Aqueous Dispersion

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Genetic and environmental heterogeneity of residual variance of weight traits in Nellore beef cattle

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

O discurso de outrem em retextualizações

This work investigates features that speakers use to introduce different voices during retextualization of a literary work. It presents events revealing different resources used, characterizing the discursive heterogeneity, recognized through various brands such as quotation marks, italics, etc. The material analyzed, ie, the corpus of this research, consists of 65 essays from the reading of a literary work - Jealous of Card, Moacyr Scliar - produced by students of the 8th year of high school while in the classroom. The data revealed that the resource most used by students was the indirect discourse, although there also occurred the use of other resources such as free indirect discourse and modalizations in fewer redactions. Notably, the autonym connotation was noted through the use of quotation marks, and the use of parentheses. The recurrence of the parentheses seem to be justified by the need to make clearer sentences that could raise questions to the reader, since the protocol request retextualization established a thirty lines of text, which would certainly limit the possibilities of expansion of the text

A (não) assunção da responsabilidade enunciativa no gênero acadêmico artigo científico produzido por alunos do curso de Letras

This research is inserted in Textual Analysis of Discourses (from now on, TAD), elaborated by linguist J-M Adam and developed nowadays by scholars from Brazilian textual linguistic. ATD consists of a theoretical and descriptive perspective from Textual Linguistics that is concerned about a theoretical and methodological position which sets Textual Linguistics in the most extensive Discourse Analysis panorama. In this work, on the enunciative level of text we investigate: the enunciative responsibility (ADAM, 2008) in 14 examples of the academic genre paper published in the journal Ao Pé da Letra and written by university students from degree in Language. The research is oriented by the studies about enunciative responsibility by Adam (2008, 2010), Rabatel (2010), Guentchéva (1994), the perspective of discursive heterogeneity by Authier-Revuz (2004). We established as general objective: (1) Analyzing the occurrence of the (not) assumption of enunciative responsibility in the academic genre paper . The analysis followed the qualitative paradigm on an interpretative basis. The conclusions show, therefore, the excerpts of the discursive genre used to present the analysis reveal a particular nature of using the recourse to the discourse of several knowledge sources that many times can (not) be assumed by the enunciator.

A heterogeneidade discursiva em revistas de divulgação científica

This research aiming at show an interpretative description about the form and function of Scientific Publication (SP) discursive genre, in two magazines of national circulation. We analyzed subjects published from 2004 to 2006, in the magazines Revista do Professor and Revista Nova Escola. We see at SP subjects reported discourses, into its two main presentation forms of other voices: direct discourse and indirect discourse. We have established some aims, first, we analyzing different forms to mark the discursive heterogeneity, by the reason the writer conceptualize an image of his/her interlocutor. The second one, we intend to look at the differences between marked heterogeneity according to the writer production, journalists and researchers, and finally, we investigate more or less occurrence of cited discourse, in what is concerned with different perspectives at communities that produce this kind of text. As theoretical background to our discussions we followed socio-historical perspective, its language and subject discourse conceptualizations. We did it mainly based on Bakhtin s works (1929; 1995; 2003). We were also based on theoretical discussions about discursive heterogeneity by Authier-Revuz (1990; 1998; 2004) and Maingueneau (1993; 2001). At analyzing the social dimensions of our data, we identified as relevant elements in the construction of the subjects (stories) the image that the writer (reporter) did/construct about his/her interlocutor as well as the use of different strategies, for example: the text produced by the journalists frequently use of direct discourse forms, while texts produced by researchers are almost fulfilled by indirect discourse. Beside this, texts are different in their social voices that are in their discourse. In the case of text produced by journalist are predominant the discursive scene of the school agents: teachers, students, parents, among others. Otherwise, in the texts produced by researchers already-said utterances, that in their majority of times, come from scientific discourse

A escrita do texto acadêmico na graduação: modos de utilização de conceitos teóricos de uma área de conhecimento

In this study we have developed a discussion about academic text production in the undergraduate course of Literature and Languages. Specifically, we are going to analyze the monographic text writing in order to verify the meaning effects created from the ways of showing other s discourses that constitute a written production. As a means to do that, we are going to answer the following question: How does a young researcher make use of a theory in order to be part of a particular scientific community? We aim to: 1) analyze the linguistic resources, like quotations and signs of cohesion that demonstrate the other s voice presence in academic writing; 2) observe the meaning effects produced through the ways that the one who writes shows the other s voice in the written text. Firstly, we have selected 23 (twentythree) monographs produced in the last five years by students from a Literature and Languages undergraduate course in a determined public university. However, in this study, we have analyzed just 02 (two) different monographic texts. To develop such an investigation, we have inquired Kuhn s concept of science, which shows the existence of different meanings of science production in the course of the centuries. It allows us to define academic writing as science production that develops and contributes to knowledge production. With the purpose of restricting the meaning of writing conception, we have relied on Coracini, who assumes that all writing production is the registration of the self, in other words, writing comes from the subject s intervention, it is to say that only an imposition of the self guarantees the subject as author of what he writes. We have as theoretical basis the following concepts: 1-) Authier-Revus s enunciative heterogeneity, that allowed us to analyze the written marks of the other in the monographic writing; 2-) Pêcheux s reformulation-paraphrase and Orlandi s polysemy and paraphrase, concepts that present notions of productivity and creativity as ways of meaning production, and allows us to observe how the process of language production in academic writing is established; 3-) Rossi-Landi s concept of exchange-value and use-value, which consider language as a linguistic work, allowing us to verify the differences between use and social functionality in a determined theory; and 4-) Possenti s notion of authorship indicia, with which we have identified attitudes that make the one who writes author of his own text. We have verified that writing characterized for repetition and reproduction may develop a meaning effect that constructs the idea that writing production promotes an author, a concept or a theory. We have also realized that a written text that restricts itself to reproduce other authors discourses and does not articulate a theory with data analysis or with work methodology, when evaluated is approved and legitimates itself as scientific production. That demonstrates the existence of academic productions that do not develop any functionality of the employed theory. The text works as a means to promote its theoretical concepts, and theory. It is to say that the theoretical foundantion, which usually is a way to argue and sustain scientific production, does not have any function. Thus, we consider that the way someone shows the other s discourse in academic writing may work as a way to underline what the other asserts to the detriment of the researcher s words. This fact allows us to comprehend that a way of writing may evidence a meaning effect of the author s, theory s or theoretical concepts promotion

H19-DMR allele-specific methylation analysis reveals epigenetic heterogeneity of CTCF binding site 6 but not of site 5 in head-and-neck carcinomas: A pilot case-control analysis

Aberrant methylation of seven potential binding sites of the CTCF factor in the differentially methylated region upstream of the H19 gene (H19-DMR) has been suggested as critical for the regulation of IGF2 and H19 imprinted genes. In this study, we analyzed the allele-specific methylation pattern of CTCF binding sites 5 and 6 using methylationsensitive restriction enzyme PCR followed by RFLP analysis in matched tumoral and lymphocyte DNA from head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients, as well as in lymphocyte DNA from control individuals who were cancer-free. The monoallelic methylation pattern was maintained in CTCF binding site 5 in 22 heterozygous out of 91 samples analyzed. Nevertheless, a biallelic methylation pattern was detected in CTCF binding site 6 in a subgroup of HNSCC patients as a somatic acquired feature of tumor cells. An atypical biallelic methylation was also observed in both tumor and lymphocyte DNA from two patients, and at a high frequency in the control group (29 out of 64 informative controls). Additionally, we found that the C/T transition detected by HhaI RFLP suppressed one dinucleotide CpG in critical CTCF binding site 6, of a mutation showing polymorphic frequencies. Although a heterogeneous methylation pattern was observed after DNA sequencing modified by sodium bisulfite, the biallelic methylation pattern was confirmed in 9 out of 10 HNSCCs. These findings are likely to be relevant in the epigenetic regulation of the DMR, especially in pathological conditions in which the imprinting of IGF2 and H19 genes is disrupted.

Heterogeneity correction in the construction of optimized planning in radiotherapy using linear programming

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The role of habitat heterogeneity for the functional response of the spider Nesticodes rufipes (Araneae : Theridiidae) to houseflies

We investigated whether or not different degrees of refuge for prey influence the characteristic of functional response exhibited by the spider Nesticodes rufipes on Musca domestica, comparing the inherent ability of N. rufipes to kill individual houseflies in such environments at two distinct time intervals. To investigate these questions, two artificial habitats were elaborated in the laboratory. For 168 h of predator-prey interaction, logistic regression analyses revealed a type 11 functional response, and a significant decrease in prey capture in the highest prey density was observed when habitat complexity was increased. Data from habitat 1 (less complex) presented a greater coefficient of determination than those from habitat 2 (more complex), indicating a higher variation of predation of the latter. For a 24 h period of predator-prey interaction, spiders killed significantly fewer prey in habitat 2 than in habitat 1. Although prey capture did not enable data to fit properly in the random predator equation in this case, predation data from habitat 2 presented a higher variation than data from habitat 1, corroborating results from 168 h of interaction. The high variability observed on data from habitat 2 (more complex habitat) is an interesting result because it reinforces the importance of refuge in promoting spatial heterogeneity, which can affect the extent of predator-prey interactions.