1,721,072 research outputs found
Business strategy, economic crisis and the theory of the firm
No full textBusiness organisation and strategy has permitted the introduction of a range of more heterodox theories linking economic history and business history. Coase’s ‘Theory of the Firm’ and Williamson’s ‘Transaction Cost Analysis’ broaden into an approach which identifies imperfect competition from within a traditional and familiar neo-classical framework. When placed within a business history context, and utilising contrasting debates over the managerial revolution and explanations of relative economic decline, business strategy begins to be open to more complex explanations for economic transitions and crisis. This complexity permits both a wider set of theories of crisis and a wider political economy, including post-Keynesian theories of market regulation and industrial policy and Marx’s ‘Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall’ to be developed
Introduction:The Financial Crisis, the Covid-19 Pandemic and the Future of Economics
No full textThe introduction outlines the main issues discussed in individual chapters: the critique of the mainstream and orthodox economic approaches following the 2007–2008 financial crisis; the need for alternative and pluralistic views in economic teaching and research; the necessity to include interdisciplinary elements in both teaching and research; and the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic which has exposed the weakness and vulnerability of mainstream economics. Hence, this chapter provides a cohesive framework to understand each chapter and how chapters are related to each other
Four “y” genes in B. subtilis genome encode γ-PGA hydrolases
No full textPoly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) is a high molecular weight homo-polyamide composed of glutamic acid monomers connected by amide linkages between the α-amino and γ-carboxylic groups which is synthesized by several microorganisms, mainly belonging to the Bacillales. The polymer is endowed with a number of favourable characteristics, being nontoxic, biodegradable, highly anionic, water soluble, superabsorbent and rather stable. For this reason it represents a promising biomaterial in a plurality of biotechnological applications. Several hypotheses have been advanced to explain the biological function of γ-PGA in bacteria: to provide protection against dehydration and heavy metals toxicity; to enhance virulence by shielding the bacterium from the host immune surveillance (e.g. in pathogens, such as B. anthracis); to act as an anti-phage shield; to serve as nourishing reserve once secreted in the environment.
Four “y” genes present in B. subtilis genome, buried in genetic elements of prophage origin, have been identified as coding for γ-PGA hydrolases. Indeed, homologues are present in several B. subtilis infecting phages, reinforcing the notion that γ-PGA constitutes an effective anti-viral defense in Bacteria.
However, highly homologous genes are also found in a large number of non-Bacillales species (126) that neither carry the γ-PGA biosynthetic genes nor have species-specific hydrolases-encoding phages. Thus, the wide distribution of γ-PGA hydrolases genes in those bacterial species is unexpected.
Our hypothesis is that such genes spread to non-Bacillales species through horizontal gene transfer, rather than de-novo phage infections, for the reason that they confer an evolutionary advantage during growth in the natural habitat. The relevance of γ-PGA hydrolases in microbial fitness might reside in the possibility of endowed organisms to feed on short glutamate oligomers released from γ-PGA secreted in the common environment by other producing species.
In B. subtilis the hypothesis of an evolutionary advantage conferred by γ-PGA hydrolases is strengthened by the fact these genes are expressed (Nicolas et al., 2012; Rasmussen et al., 2009) and that four different paralogues are maintained in the genome of several strains. Karamata and coworkers (Lazarevic et al., 1999) had postulated that the maintenance of B. subtilis prophages was under positive selective pressure; our work suggests that γ-PGA hydrolases genes might be partly involved in driving such positive selection.
References
Nicolas et al., 2012. Science 335:1103-6.
Rasmussen et al., 2009. Mol Microbiol 73:1043-57.
Lazarevic et al., 1999. Microbiology 145:1055-67
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Introduction:The financial crash and post-crash economics
No full textThis book undertakes an examination of the problems facing economics as a discipline taught in universities. It does so against a background when economics is more influential within public discourse than has been the case in decades while at the same time when the ideas typically identified as the totality of the economics are being fundamentally critiqued and challenged from both within and out with the discipline. The book, written from the perspectives of those engaged with the discipline from across a range of universities, seeks to provide some indication of where the discipline should look for more appropriate theories for the world we live in
Variations on the Author
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Full text linkWe 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
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