This volume analyses contemporary capitalism and its crises based on a theory of capitalist evolution known as the social structure of accumulation (SSA) theory. It applies this theory to explain the ...severe financial and economic crisis that broke out in 2008 and the kind of changes required to resolve it. The editors and contributors make available new work within this school of thought on such issues as the rise and persistence of the 'neoliberal' or 'free-market' form of capitalism since 1980 and the growing globalization and financialization of the world economy. The collection includes analyses of the US economy as well as that of several parts of the developing world.
Using IAP (plasma analyzer) and ISL (Langmuir probe) experiments onboard DEMETER (Detection of Electromagnetic Emissions Transmitted from Earthquake Regions) satellite and GPS (Global Positioning ...System) measurements, we have statistically analyzed the variations of the electron and ion densities to search for disturbances in the vicinity of four large earthquakes prior to events. The indices Dst and Kp were used to distinguish pre-earthquake anomalies from the other anomalies related to the geomagnetic activities. For each studied case, a very good agreement was found between the different parameters estimated by DEMETER and GPS data in the detection of pre-seismic anomalies. Our statistics results show that the anomalous deviations prior to earthquakes have different sign from case to case, and that their amplitude depends on the magnitude of the earthquake. It has also been found that the electron density measured by the ISL experiment at night detects anomalous variations significantly before the earthquakes. The appearance of positive and negative anomalies in both of DEMETER and TEC (Total Electron Content) data during 1 to 5 days before all studied earthquakes during quiet geomagnetic conditions indicates that these anomalous behaviors are highly regarded as seismo-ionospheric precursors.
Abstract
We investigate whether firm performance is related to the accumulated stock of technological knowledge associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and, if so, whether the firm’s ...history in 4IR technology development affects such a relationship. We exploit a rich longitudinal matched patent-firm data set on the population of large firms that filed 4IR patents at the European Patent Office (EPO) between 2009 and 2014, while reconstructing their patent stocks from 1985 onward. To identify 4IR patents, we use a novel two-step procedure proposed by EPO (2020, Patents and the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Global Technology Trends Enabling the Data-Driven Economy, European Patent Office), based on Cooperative Patent Classification codes and on a full-text patent search. Our results show a positive and significant relationship between firms’ stocks of 4IR patents and labor and total factor productivity. We also find that firms with a long history in 4IR patent filings benefit more from the development of 4IR technological capabilities than later applicants. Conversely, we find that firm profitability is not significantly related to the stock of 4IR patents, which suggests that the returns from 4IR technological developments may be slow to be cashed in. Finally, we find that the positive relationship with productivity is stronger for 4IR-related wireless technology and for artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, and big data analytics.
Pigs are considered as important hosts or “mixing vessels” for the generation of pandemic influenza viruses. Systematic surveillance of influenza viruses in pigs is essential for early warning and ...preparedness for the next potential pandemic. Here, we report on an influenza virus surveillance of pigs from 2011 to 2018 in China, and identify a recently emerged genotype 4 (G4) reassortant Eurasian avian-like (EA) H1N1 virus, which bears 2009 pandemic (pdm/09) and triple-reassortant (TR)-derived internal genes and has been predominant in swine populations since 2016. Similar to pdm/09 virus, G4 viruses bind to human-type receptors, produce much higher progeny virus in human airway epithelial cells, and show efficient infectivity and aerosol transmission in ferrets. Moreover, low antigenic cross-reactivity of human influenza vaccine strains with G4 reassortant EA H1N1 virus indicates that preexisting population immunity does not provide protection against G4 viruses. Further serological surveillance among occupational exposure population showed that 10.4% (35/338) of swine workers were positive for G4 EA H1N1 virus, especially for participants 18 y to 35 y old, who had 20.5% (9/44) seropositive rates, indicating that the predominant G4 EA H1N1 virus has acquired increased human infectivity. Such infectivity greatly enhances the opportunity for virus adaptation in humans and raises concerns for the possible generation of pandemic viruses.
The aim of this study is to examine the research models of doctoral theses published on brands subject in 2020-2023. For this aim, the content analysis of the doctoral theses retrieved from the ...database of the YÖK National Thesis Centre was carried out using PRISMA 2009 Flow Diagram. Secondary data sources obtained from 85 doctoral theses evaluated were analyzed using VOSviewer and UCINET programs. As a result of the analyses, a total of 40 brand concepts were evaluated in the research models of doctoral theses published on brand concepts. It can be seen that some similar brand concepts have been evaluated in the research models of relevant theses in all years. Brand loyalty, brand equity, brand image, brand quality, brand trust, brand satisfaction, brand experience, brand awareness, brand attitude and brand love are the common motor structures with high link strength that are evaluated in most of the dissertations. However, the concepts of brand loyalty, brand trust, brand quality, brand equity and brand image, which have a higher number of direct ties and eigenvector values, are the leading actors. The results of the study are discussed and implications are provided.
For decades society venerated advanced information and communications technologies (ICTs) as a source of economic rejuvenation and uplift. The financial crisis of 2007-08 shook such ideas. ...Originating in the United States, the driver of digital systems and services, the prolonged economic slump precipitated a perplexing historical outcome: a technological revolution wrapped inside an economic collapse. Dan Schiller analyzes the crisis tendencies of capitalism to root out the sources of this digital depression. From there he traces the economic re-composition wrought by ICTs, seeing them as a leading economic growth pole akin to the 1930s consumer industries that came out of the Great Depression. Finally, he lays out the present-day battles to capture and control digital technology and its growth. Demonstrating digital technology's central role in the global political economy and connecting it to the rise of worldwide financial, production and military networks, Schiller sets the digital communication industry in the context of intensifying geopolitical conflicts over the Internet. As he shows, the forces at the core of capitalism--exploitation, commodification, and inequality--are ongoing and accelerating within the networked political economy. Timely and wide ranging, Digital Depression blazes new ground in illuminating the role of information and communications within the political economy's developmental processes.
Governing under Stress Conlan, Timothy J; Posner, Paul L; Regan, Priscilla M
01/2017
eBook
The underappreciated but surprisingly successful implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) helped rescue the economy during the Great Recession and represented one of the ...most important achievements of the Obama presidency. It tested all levels of government with urgent time frames and extensive accountability requirements. While ARRA passed most tests with comparatively little mismanagement or fraud, negative public and media perceptions of the initiative deprived the president of political credit.
Drawing on more than two hundred interviews and nationwide field research,Governing under Stressexamines a range of ARRA stimulus programs to analyze the fraught politics, complex implementation, and impact of the legislation. Essays from public administration scholars use ARRA to study how to implement large federal programs in our modern era of indirect, networked governance. Throughout, the contributors present potent insights into the most pressing challenges facing public policy and management, and they uncover important lessons about policy instruments and networks, the effects of transparency and accountability, and the successes and failures of different types of government intervention.
•Light-duty vehicle miles traveled could increase by as much as 14%.•Non-drivers could increase total light-duty vehicle miles traveled by as much as 9%.•Drivers with medical conditions could ...increase light-duty vehicle miles traveled by as much as 2.6%.•Females could make up most of the increase in vehicle miles traveled.•Working age adults (ages 19–64) could increase their vehicle miles traveled the most overall in magnitude.
Automated vehicles represent a technology that promises to increase mobility for many groups, including the senior population (those over age 65) but also for non-drivers and people with medical conditions. This paper estimates bounds on the potential increases in travel in a fully automated vehicle environment due to an increase in mobility from the non-driving and senior populations and people with travel-restrictive medical conditions. In addition, these bounding estimates indicate which of these demographics could have the greatest increases in annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and highlight those age groups and genders within these populations that could contribute the most to the VMT increases. The data source is the 2009 National Household Transportation Survey (NHTS), which provides information on travel characteristics of the U.S. population. The changes to light-duty VMT are estimated by creating and examining three possible travel demand wedges. In demand wedge one, non-drivers are assumed to travel as much as the drivers within each age group and gender. Demand wedge two assumes that the driving elderly (those over age 65) without medical conditions will travel as much as a younger population within each gender. Demand wedge three makes the assumption that working age adult drivers (19–64) with medical conditions will travel as much as working age adults without medical conditions within each gender, while the driving elderly with medical any travel-restrictive conditions will travel as much as a younger demographic within each gender in a fully automated vehicle environment. The combination of the results from all three demand wedges represents an upper bound of 295billion miles or a 14% increase in annual light-duty VMT for the US population 19 and older. Since traveling has other costs besides driving effort, these estimates serve to bound the potential increase from these populations to inform the scope of the challenges, rather than forecast specific VMT scenarios.
As Obama nears the middle of his first-term as president Paul Street assesses his performance against the expectations of his supporters. While mainstream journalists have noted discrepancies between ...Obama's original vision and reality, Paul Street uniquely measures Obama's record against the expectations of the truly progressive agenda many of his supporters expected him to follow. Taken together, the list of Obama's weakened policies is startling: his business-friendly measures with the economy, the lack of support for the growing mass of unemployed and poor, the dilution of his health reform agenda, the passage of a record-setting Pentagon budget, and escalation of US military violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Street's account reveals these and many other indications of how deeply beholden Obama is to existing dominant domestic and global hierarchies and doctrines.
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