A PALAVRA DE JAVÉ EM JEREMIAS 7,1 8,3: UMA ANÁLISE DA PROFECIA COMO PORTADORA DE UM CONFLITO SOCIAL ORIUNDO DA COBRANÇA EXCESSIVA DE TRIBUTO

Esta pesquisa privilegia o enfoque histórico ao analisar o texto bíblico, como produto histórico-social, a partir do método sociológico. O material disposto ao longo desta investigação pretende ser uma ajuda para a compreensão de alguns textos do profeta Jeremias. Partindo do princípio de que o texto possui um vínculo com a sociedade na qual foi criado e fazendo uso da metodologia exegética, realiza-se uma análise histórico-sociológica da palavra de Javé em Jeremias 7,1 8,3 como portadora de um conflito social oriundo da cobrança excessiva de tributo em uma sociedade judaíta marcadamente tributária. Busca-se, por esse meio, o sentido do texto dentro do provável cenário histórico-social que permeia o escrito. Para isso, faz-se necessária a investigação dos aspectos preliminares que envolvem tanto o livro de Jeremias, sobretudo, os polêmicos caps. 7,1 8,3, como também a questão do estudo da pesquisa moderna acerca dessa magnífica obra. Vale a pena também salientar o conceito semiótico da poética sociológica que procura estudar a interação causal entre literatura e seu meio social. Além disso, avalia-se o âmbito histórico social da unidade literária alvo de nossa pesquisa, situando-a em seu provável contexto histórico social e determinando a datação, o cenário político e o modo de produção vigente nesse período. Não olvidando, contudo, do fator desencadeador do conflito social e o papel da religião nesse cenário. Além do mais, examina-se o sentido dos textos específicos ou unidades literárias concluídas (perícopes) presentes nos caps. 7,1 8,3, tendo como pressuposto o modelo teórico do modo de produção tributário e os passos da exegese histórico-social. O mecanismo socioanalítico do modo de produção tributário servirá como instrumento de análise da condição socioeconômica, centrando-se nos componentes externos incorporados na coletânea, não em sua história redacional, mas sim em sua formação social.

Essays on Development Policy and the Political Economy of Conflict

Electoral Rules and Leader Selection: Experimental Evidence from Ugandan Community Groups. Despite a large body of work documenting how electoral systems affect policy outcomes, less is known about their impact on leader selection. We study this by comparing two types of participatory decision making in Ugandan community groups: (i) vote by secret ballot and (ii) open discussion with consensus. Random assignment allows us to estimate the causal impact of the rules on leader types and social service delivery. Vote groups are found to elect leaders more similar to the average member while discussion group leaders are positively selected on socio-economic characteristics. Further, dropout rates are significantly higher in discussion groups, particularly for poorer members. After 3.5 years, vote groups are larger in size and their members save less and get smaller loans. We conclude that the secret ballot vote creates more inclusive groups while open discussion groups favor the already economically successful. Preparing for Genocide: Community Meetings in Rwanda. How do political elites prepare the civilian population for participation in violent conflict? We empirically investigate this question using data from the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Every Saturday before 1994, Rwandan villagers had to meet to work on community infrastructure. The practice was highly politicized and, according to anecdotal evidence, regularly used by the political elites for spreading propaganda in the years before the genocide. This paper presents the first quantitative evidence of this abuse of the community meetings. To establish causality, we exploit cross-sectional variation in meeting intensity induced by exogenous weather fluctuations. We find that an additional rainy Saturday resulted in a five percent lower civilian participation rate in genocide violence. Selection into Borrowing: Survey Evidence from Uganda. In this paper, I study how changes to the standard credit contract affect loan demand and selection into borrowing, using a representative sample of urban micro enterprises, most with no borrowing experience. Hypothetical loan demand questions are used to test whether firm owners respond to changes in loans' contractual terms and whether take-up varies by firms' risk type and other firm owner characteristics. The results indicate that contracts with lower interest rates and less stringent collateral requirements attract less risky borrowers, suggesting that there is scope for improvement of standard financial contract terms. Credit Contract Structure and Firm Growth: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial. We study the effects of credit contract structure on firm outcomes among small and medium sized firms. A randomized control trial was carried out to distinguish between some of the key constraints to efficient credit use connected to the firms' business environment and production function, namely (i) backloaded returns (ii) uncertain returns and (iii) indivisible fixed costs. Each firm was followed for the 1-year loan cycle. We describe the experiment and present preliminary results from the first 754 out of 2,340 firms to have completed the loan cycle. Firms offered a grace period have higher profits and higher household income than firms receiving a rebate later on as well as the control group. They also increased the number of paid employees  and reduced the number of unpaid employees, an effect also found among firms that received a cash subsidy at the beginning of the loan cycle. We discuss potential mechanisms behind these effects.

Canadian province-building : the state as educator and entrepreneur in Alberta

This study provides an account and analysis of the development of systems of educational provision In capitalist democracies, especially in connection with the social origin and relative autonony of those systems. Using the case study of Athabasca University, a Canadian distance-education institution in the province of Alberta, the study is a critical work of historical sociology, in which the shifting social role of a system of educational provision during two transitions of a regional political economy is analyzed. Comparative observations are made in reference to other systems of educational provision and organizations, in particular the training department of a large Company based In the same region as the Unversity. The study explores the social origin and relative autonomy of systems of educational provision In relation to educational ideologies, which are themselves associated with social ideologies. Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical construction of "fields of power'' allows for a consideration of power as a relational phenomenon in the study. In other words, power is understood as being exercised in a way that simultaneously takes account of the power of other actors and groups. Fields of power also allow for an analysis of power as it is exercised at various levels of organizations and within society. The study is organized in two phases. First, an account is developed of the historical period in which the Unlversity and the Company were created, but especially the period of establishment for the Unlversity, 1970 - 75. Conclusions are offered concerning the causal associations between the historical antecedents that gave rise to the two organlzations. It is argued that both the University and the Company were established In part to enact the AIberta government's efforts to enhance Its powers within the Canadian federation (a process called province-building), The second phase is concerned with a more recent period of three years, 1993 - 95. By this time, province-building was not as significant a concern for policy-makers, and the organizational responses of the University and the Company reflected this shift. A divergence of practice is observed at the University and the Company, with actors at the Company encouraging the development of collectivist values for employees, while at the University no such overt strategy was followed, The study concludes that a consumerist model of education developed by the University in 1970 - 75 and expanded In 1993 - 95 contributed significantly to the institution's social origin and relative autonomy. The model was used as an Ideology in the earlier period and as a strategy In the later one, serving to forestall the institution's closure during both periods of crisis, though Ieading to ambiguous social outcomes. A consumerist model may on the one hand be progressive in that expanded access to educational opportunities is made possible. On the other hand, the consumerist model will tend increasingly to provide educational services to those social segments that already have access to educational opportunities.

Differential gains from Business Link support and advice:a treatment effects approach

The provision of advisory support to small firms is almost ubiquitous in OECD countries, although it is organised in different ways and is justified on slightly different grounds. In England publicly supported advisory services are provided through the Business Link (BL) network. Here, we consider two questions: what sort of companies receive advisory support from BL; and, what types of firms benefit most from that support? Our analysis is based on a telephone survey of 2000 firms, around half of which had received intensive assistance from BL between April and October 2003. Probit analysis suggests that the probability of receiving assistance was greater among younger businesses, those with larger numbers of directors in the firm, and those with more gender diversity among the firm's leadership team. Our business-growth models suggest that BL intensive assistance was having a positive effect on employment growth in 2003. BL had a positive but insignificant impact on sales growth over the period. Employment growth effects tend to be larger where firms have a management and organisational structure, which is more conducive to absorbing and making use of external advice. The analysis suggests that BL might increase its impact through targeting these larger, more export-orientated, businesses. Employment growth effects differ little, however, depending on either the ethnic or the gender diversity of the leadership team.

Mapping causal knowledge: how people consider their environment during meetings

Causal mapping can help managers to think through the causal influence between issues, enabling them to base a decision on a more structured consideration. Even in regular meetings, learning and the integration of knowledge from diverse stakeholders can benefit from causal mapping. Four causal mapping meetings with management teams are analysed to assess how managers thought causally about their environment when strategy-making. We found that although managers can use other views to expand their environmental knowledge, some prefer to use familiar information rather than less familiar information. Despite this preference, many managers thought systemically about a raft of related issues. We discuss our findings in the context of regular meetings and offer improvements to the facilitation of group causal mapping.

Assessing the effectiveness of business support services in England:evidence from a theory based evaluation

In England, publicly supported advice to small firms is organized primarily through the Business Link (BL) network. Using the programme theory underlying this business support, we develop four propositions and test these empirically using data from a new survey of over 3000 English SMEs. We find strong support for the value to BL operators of a high profile to boost take-up. We find support for the BL’s market segmentation that targets intensive assistance to younger firms and those with limited liability. Allowing for sample selection, we find no significant effects on growth from ‘other’ assistance but find a significant employment boost from intensive assistance. This partially supports the programme theory assertion that BL improves business growth and strongly supports the proposition that there are differential outcomes from intensive and other assistance. This suggests an improvement in the BL network, compared with earlier studies, notably Roper et al. (2001), Roper and Hart (2005).

Collaborative alliances and organisational innovation : a study of the innovation process

Despite the voluminous studies written about organisational innovation over the last 30-40 years our understanding of this phenomenon continues to be inconsistent and inconclusive (Wolfe, 1994). An assessment of the theoretical and methodological issues influencing the explanatory utility of many studies has led scholars (e.g. Slappendel, 1996) to re-evaluate the assumptions used to ground studies. Building on these criticisms the current study contributes to the development of an interactive perspective of organisational innovation. This work contributes empirically and theoretically to an improved understanding of the innovation process and the interaction between the realm of action and the mediating effects of pre-existing contingencies i.e. social control, economic exchange and the communicability of knowledge (Scarbrough, 1996). Building on recent advances in institutional theory (see Barley, 1986; 1990; Barley and Tolbert, 1997) and critical theory (Morrow, 1994, Sayer, 1992) the study aims to demonstrate, via longitudinal intensive research, the process through which ideas are translated into reality. This is significant because, despite a growing recognition of the implicit link between the strategic conduct of actors and the institutional realm in organisational analysis, there are few examples that theorise and empirically test these connections. By assessing an under researched example of technology transfer; the government's Teaching Company Scheme (TCS) this project provides a critique of the innovation process that contributes to theory and our appreciation of change in the UK government's premier technology transfer scheme (QR, 1996). Critical moments during the translation of ideas illustrate how elements that are linked to social control, economic exchange and communicability mediate the innovation process. Using analytical categories i.e. contradiction, slippage and dysfunctionality these are assessed in relation to the actions (coping strategies) of programme members over a two-year period. Drawing on Giddens' (1995) notion of the duality of structure this study explores the nature of the relationship between the task environment and institutional environment demonstrating how and why knowledge is both an enabler and barrier to organisational innovation.

An assessment of factors affecting performance and growth of new technology based firms in the UK

New Technology Based Firms (NTBF) are considered to be important for the economic development of a country in regards to both employment growth and innovative activity. The latter is believed to contribute significantly to the increase in productivity and therefore the competitiveness of UK’s economy. This study contributes to the above literature by investigating two of the factors believed to limit the growth of such firms in the UK. The first concerns the existence of a ‘knowledge gap’ while the second the existence of a ‘financial gap’. These themes are developed along three main research lines. Firstly, based upon the human capital theory initially proposed by Backer (1964) new evidence is provided on the human capital characteristics (experience and education) of the current UK NTBF entrepreneurs. Secondly, the causal relationship between general and specific human capital (as well as their interactions) upon the company performance and growth is investigated via its traditional direct effect as well as via its indirect effect upon the access to external finance. Finally, more light is shed on the financial structure and the type of financial constraints that high-tech firms face at start-up. In particular, whether a financial gap exists is explored by distinguishing between the demand and the supply of external finance as well as by type of external source of financing. The empirical testing of the various research hypotheses has been obtained by carrying out an original survey of new technology based firms defined as independent companies, established in the past 25 years in R&D intensive sectors. The resulting dataset contains information for 412 companies on a number of general company characteristics and the characteristics of their entrepreneurs in 2004. Policy and practical implications for future and current entrepreneurs and also providers of external finance are provided.

Investigation of a cross-layer link adaptation algorithm for IEEE 802.11n networks

Link adaptation is a critical component of IEEE 802.11 systems, which adapts transmission rates to dynamic wireless channel conditions. In this paper we investigate a general cross-layer link adaptation algorithm which jointly considers the physical layer link quality and random channel access at the MAC layer. An analytic model is proposed for the link adaptation algorithm. The underlying wireless channel is modeled with a multiple state discrete time Markov chain. Compared with the pure link quality based link adaptation algorithm, the proposed cross-layer algorithm can achieve considerable performance gains of up to 20%.

Does ownership always matter? Evidence from the Indian banking industry

Existing empirical evidence on the ownership-performance issue is weighted towards the property rights hypothesis that private enterprises are superior to public enterprises. However, very few studies examine a developing country in which the strong link between the market for corporate control and the efficiency of private enterprises assumed by the property rights hypothesis may not be satisfied. Our study of the Indian banking industry confirms our expectation that, in the absence of well-functioning capital markets, there may not be significant differences in the performance of private and public enterprises. Our analysis highlights the importance of creating appropriate institutions prior to pursuing privatization in developing countries.

Communities and emerging semantics in semantic link network:discovery and learning

The World Wide Web provides plentiful contents for Web-based learning, but its hyperlink-based architecture connects Web resources for browsing freely rather than for effective learning. To support effective learning, an e-learning system should be able to discover and make use of the semantic communities and the emerging semantic relations in a dynamic complex network of learning resources. Previous graph-based community discovery approaches are limited in ability to discover semantic communities. This paper first suggests the Semantic Link Network (SLN), a loosely coupled semantic data model that can semantically link resources and derive out implicit semantic links according to a set of relational reasoning rules. By studying the intrinsic relationship between semantic communities and the semantic space of SLN, approaches to discovering reasoning-constraint, rule-constraint, and classification-constraint semantic communities are proposed. Further, the approaches, principles, and strategies for discovering emerging semantics in dynamic SLNs are studied. The basic laws of the semantic link network motion are revealed for the first time. An e-learning environment incorporating the proposed approaches, principles, and strategies to support effective discovery and learning is suggested.

Expression profiling of type 2 diabetes susceptibility genes in the pancreatic islets, adipose tissue and liver of obese mice

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is characterized by impaired beta cell function and insulin resistance. T2D susceptibility genes identified by Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are likely to have roles in both impaired insulin secretion from the beta cell as well as insulin resistance. The aim of this study was to use gene expression profiling to assess the effect of the diabetic milieu on the expression of genes involved in both insulin secretion and insulin resistance. We measured the expression of 43 T2D susceptibility genes in the islets, adipose and liver of leptin-deficient Ob/Ob mice compared with Ob/+ littermates. The same panel of genes were also profiled in cultured rodent adipocytes, hepatocytes and beta cells in response to high glucose conditions, to distinguish expression effects due to elevated glycemia from those on the causal pathway to diabetes or induced by other factors in the diabetic microenviroment. We found widespread deregulation of these genes in tissues from Ob/Ob mice, with differential regulation of 23 genes in adipose, 18 genes in liver and one gene (Tcf7l2) in islets of diabetic animals (Ob/Ob) compared to control (Ob/+) animals. However, these expression changes were in most cases not noted in glucose-treated adipocyte, hepatocyte or beta cell lines, indicating that they may not be an effect of hyperglycemia alone. This study indicates that expression changes are apparent with diabetes in both the insulin producing beta cells, but also in peripheral tissues involved in insulin resistance. This suggests that incidence or progression of diabetic phenotypes in a mouse model of diabetes is driven by both secretory and peripheral defects. © J. A. Barth Verlag in Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart New York.

Reinforcing the security of corporate information resources:a critical review of the role of the acceptable use policy

Increasingly users are seen as the weak link in the chain, when it comes to the security of corporate information. Should the users of computer systems act in any inappropriate or insecure manner, then they may put their employers in danger of financial losses, information degradation or litigation, and themselves in danger of dismissal or prosecution. This is a particularly important concern for knowledge-intensive organisations, such as universities, as the effective conduct of their core teaching and research activities is becoming ever more reliant on the availability, integrity and accuracy of computer-based information resources. One increasingly important mechanism for reducing the occurrence of inappropriate behaviours, and in so doing, protecting corporate information, is through the formulation and application of a formal ‘acceptable use policy (AUP). Whilst the AUP has attracted some academic interest, it has tended to be prescriptive and overly focussed on the role of the Internet, and there is relatively little empirical material that explicitly addresses the purpose, positioning or content of real acceptable use policies. The broad aim of the study, reported in this paper, is to fill this gap in the literature by critically examining the structure and composition of a sample of authentic policies – taken from the higher education sector – rather than simply making general prescriptions about what they ought to contain. There are two important conclusions to be drawn from this study: (1) the primary role of the AUP appears to be as a mechanism for dealing with unacceptable behaviour, rather than proactively promoting desirable and effective security behaviours, and (2) the wide variation found in the coverage and positioning of the reviewed policies is unlikely to be fostering a coherent approach to security management, across the higher education sector.

High-growth firms and productivity:evidence from the United Kingdom

Abstract There is considerable evidence that high-growth firms (HGFs) contribute significantly to employment and economic growth. However, the literature so far does not adequately explore the link between HGFs and productivity. This paper investigates the empirical link between total factor productivity (TFP) growth and HGFs, defined in terms of sales growth, in the United Kingdom over the period 2001-2010, by examining two related research questions. Firstly, does higher TFP growth lead to HGF status and secondly, does HGF experience help firms achieve faster TFP growth? Our findings reveal that firms in both the manufacturing and services sectors are more likely to become HGFs when they exhibit higher TFP growth. In addition, firms that have had HGF experience tend to enjoy faster TFP growth following the high-growth episodes. Policy implications are drawn based on the self-reinforcing process of the high-growth phenomenon that is revealed by our results. © 2014 The Author(s).

Exploring clusters and their value as types of business networks in the agricultural sector

The undisputed link of the agricultural sector with regional economies, along with the increased competition, fosters agri-business companies to rethink their business philosophy and to transform from isolated firms to members of more extended business formations. The paper examines a particular type of business network, the cluster. It focuses on the concept of clusters and on cluster-based strategies in the context of agriculture. In particular, the paper explores the value of clusters by taking into consideration the particularities of the agricultural sector. Potential benefits and constraints of agri-business cluster development are also presented.