1,354,216 research outputs found
[Photograph of Ervin Bucek and H. J. Braunig]
No full textPhotograph of Ervin Bucek, H. J. Braunig, and three other unknown men. There is a piece of paper taped to the back that says "Ervin Bucek (in hat) cutting cake. H. J. Braunig is next to Mr. Bucek." According to accompanying information, this party may have been around Easter
Global trade, European integration and the restructuring of Slovak clothing exports
No full textThe Slovak clothing sector seems to have a number of relative competitive strengths and limitations within this broader context of EU?ECE trade liberalisation and growth of clothing exports. In terms of strengths, three issues are key. First, like other ECE countries, Slovakia is achieving increasing access to EU markets for its relatively high-value products. These are more competitive in the EU market in terms of value than those from lower cost neighbouring states, such as Ukraine. Second, part of the competitive strength of the clothing production system in Slovakia (as elsewhere) is derived from the distinct regional agglomerations of textiles and clothing producers in two main regions, Trenlin and Prestov (see Smith, 2003). Much recent attention in economic geography has been focused on regional agglomeration and the competitive underpinnings of regional economic success (Scott, 1988, 1998; Storper, 1995, 1997). Together, the two main regional agglomerations of clothing producers in Slovakia embody many of the features of such industrial districts found in Western Europe and North America, including dense forms of local co-operation between firms. Co-operation and contracting between firms has enabled export oriented firms to respond flexibly to the uncertain and unpredictable demands from EU buyers. In addition, there is some evidence of firm upgrading in which managers have been able to develop more independent market access of their own brand clothing thus reducing their reliance on western buyers. However, as Smith (2003) has argued elsewhere, such agglomerations are also characterised by unequal power relations between Slovak manufacturers and EU buyers, between core contracting firms in such regions and other local producers who play a more marginal role, and between firms and their workers given that wage levels remain low in the clothing sector.There are also a number of strategic limits to the continued growth of the Slovak clothing export system. First, it is clear that producers face continuous costs pressures. Pressure for wage increases in a very low pay sector is apparent. Many firms have suggested that worker retention has become an issue because of low wages. Firms have sought out ways of coping with such pressures through other mechanisms such as subsidised transportation (Smith, 2003). Elsewhere, in Bulgaria, Pickles (2002) has found that firms have also been forced to respond to the temporal flexibility required by workers also engaged in supplementing household income through seasonal agricultural employment and work. Cost pressures are also experienced in the emergence of new competitors in lower cost areas, such as Ukrainian firms, although, as we have seen, this is counterbalanced by the quality differences of clothing production between Slovakia and Ukraine. Nevertheless, if Ukrainian producers are able to upgrade quality to match (if not surpass) Slovak levels then competitive pressures will intensify. Furthermore, EU membership may increase costs for Slovak producers, through the costs of implementing otherwise desirable employment and environmental legislative requirements. The effect may be to stimulate a further off-shoring of production to newer producing regions, such as those in the former Soviet Union.Second, it is clear that reliance on outward processing strategies has failed to develop significant design capability in Slovakia. While there are cases of design intensity in production in some firms, it is clear that being locked into outward processing forms of production has not enabled the transfer of technology and knowledge to enable many Slovak firms to develop design capability. Rather, reliance on western designs, brands and trademarks remains predominant in the Slovak clothing sector. However, the development of design capability is seen as necessary in order to upgrade production and move out of low-cost production.Third, and finally, there is a general absence of specific regional policies to promote upgrading in the clothing sector and those policies that do exist are limited in scope. However, there is evidence from western Europe – notably from Italy – that a dense tissue of regional institutions involved in providing credit, technological support and employment training can be important in the sustenance and potential upgrading of clothing sectors. Whether, however, such policy foci would help to overcome the continual pressure for cost reduction and low wages in what, after all, is an increasingly globalised manufacturing sector remains an open question, and the experience of higher cost locations in the EU and USA suggest that cost imperatives may determine the fate of even relatively high quality production in central Europe
Regional restructuring in a transition economy: the process of tertiarization in Slovakia
No full textSlovakia is influenced by the process, that is connected with global ones in economy. During the pre-transformation period, the socialist system did not develop the tertiary sphere. The transformation process brought after the year 1989 a remarkable change in economic structure. One of the crucial problems is high rate of unemployment namely in the regions that collapsed in many branches of production. Despite dynamic economic changes, the rate of unemployment did not raise so high, as the increasing development of tertiary sphere swallowed the striking flow of unemployment in the primary and secondary sectors. Looking at the needs and the trends of development of the tertiary sphere, we cannot forget its international dimension. The most remarkable internationalization will be seen in modern information activities, foreign trade, financial services, FDI etc. Analyses carried out, emphasizing the new type of reproduction process in the matter, have proved the fact, that the further development of the country should be more connected with our human investments. The concepts of "information age", "information society" and "knowledge based-economy" basically contain arguments to the effect that, in the advanced economies, knowledge and information are becoming the principal factors of production. There is a visible parallel with investments in education, development of science, etc. If we want to enforce a higher effectiveness of production, it is only possible through the development of a broad spectrum of tertiary activities. Our paper try to analyze this changes on the basis of available statistical data. Transition process is closely connected with restructuring process. From managing of this process depends if Slovakia will capture the global wave of changes from industrial to advanced services, but not only on country level but also in their regional dimension.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Author, publisher and bookseller : a tripartite synergy in Nigerian book industry
No full textThis work is about the roles of Author, Publisher and Bookseller in Book development in
Nigeria. The paper started by delving into the history of Book Publishing in Nigeria after
which it proceeded by defining who an author, a publisher, and a bookseller is and
expatiated on the indispensable roles of these key actors in Nigerian Book Industry and in
the emerging Information Society. Furthermore, the various constraints to book
development were identified while the paper advised on how the Book Industry can be
further promoted in Nigeria. However, the paper concluded and made recommendations
on how the Book sector can help in enhancing scholarship in the country
The Thursday Murder Club: Launching a megabrand author - a publishing case study
No full textIn 2020, the Christmas book charts in the UK made headlines: Barack Obama’s eagerly awaited autobiography, The Promised Land, was beaten to the top spot by The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, a debut cosy crime novel set in a retirement village. Not only did Osman’s book beat the former US president’s expected bestseller, it also broke records, becoming the fastest-selling debut crime novel of all time. Although Osman has a certain level of fame in the UK from his TV appearances on shows such as Pointless, his celebrity status does not entirely explain the novel’s huge sales. This article tracks the acquisition, publication, and promotion journey of The Thursday Murder Club in order to understand the industry and cultural context of its success and to interrogate the role of celebrity in the creation of author brands. The findings suggest that the unexpected scale of the success of the book owed to a number of factors, including in-depth editing by the novel’s agent, editor, and author to tighten up the plot, an extensive and strategic promotional campaign, the pandemic (which drove interest in the book’s genre and themes), and the quality of the writing. We find that the book’s success was accentuated by Osman’s celebrity status rather than being entirely reliant on it. This research adds to the growing scholarship on celebrity authorship by means of an in-depth case study and provides insight into the processes behind publishing a ‘celebrity’ book and launching a megabrand author
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