A model of manager-induced organisational stability in post-Soviet agriculture

Agricultural transition in the former Soviet Union has, surprisingly for many observers, not led to a widespread adoption of individual farming. This article attempts to understand some previously neglected forces behind this outcome. It develops a theoretical model of farm restructuring in which managers exploit the preferences of workers for conformity within a social reference group to cement their own power. The model provides a rationale for the persistent support among workers and managers to the status-quo organisation, despite the availability of a more efficient individual farming option. Based on empirical evidence, we argue that managers have an incentive to keep horizons of workers limited by sheltering them from pro-reform influences. Polar reform equilibria are generated that are consistent with the observed spatial patterns of restructuring. The model predicts that policies aiming at the establishment of independent farms will fail unless they induce a big push in reform attitudes among workers.Agricultural transition, former Soviet Union, social interaction effects, farm restructuring., Farm Management,

Categories of insight and their correlates: An exploration of relationships among classic-type insight problems, rebus puzzles, remote associates and esoteric analogies.

A central question in creativity concerns how insightful ideas emerge. Anecdotal examples of insightful scientific and technical discoveries include Goodyear's discovery of the vulcanization of rubber, and Mendeleev's realization that there may be gaps as he tried to arrange the elements into the Periodic Table. Although most people would regard these discoveries as insightful, cognitive psychologists have had difficulty in agreeing on whether such ideas resulted from insights or from conventional problem solving processes. One area of wide agreement among psychologists is that insight involves a process of restructuring. If this view is correct, then understanding insight and its role in problem solving will depend on a better understanding of restructuring and the characteristics that describe it. This article proposes and tests a preliminary classification of insight problems based on several restructuring characteristics: the need to redefine spatial assumptions, the need to change defined forms, the degree of misdirection involved, the difficulty in visualizing a possible solution, the number of restructuring sequences in the problem, and the requirement for figure-ground type reversals. A second purpose of the study was to compare performance on classic spatial insight problems with two types of verbal tests that may be related to insight, the Remote Associates Test (RAT), and rebus puzzles. In doing so, we report on the results of a survey of 172 business students at the University of Waikato in New Zealand who completed classic-type insight, RAT and rebus problems

Spatial urban restructuring for economic growth with distribution: The case of Ceara (Brazil)

One of the most important challenges of economic policy is the combination between economic growth and the reduction of inequality and poverty. The change of the regime in Brazil can be seen as a reaction to the failure of economic policy in this field. We focus on the case of one of Brazil's states in the Northeast, Ceara, that experienced a rapid macro economic growth in the last decade, but with no reduction of poverty and inequality. Established economic theory shows that economic growth generally implies a changing economic structure (relatively less agriculture, and more industry and later services), and a process of urbanization. Our hypothesis is that in addition to industrialization and urbanization, a component of spatial urban restructuring is necessary for the achievement of a more equalitarian economic growth. The persistence of inequalities and high levels of poverty in spite of the macro economic growth can be explained by the continuing high level of urban concentration, and the insufficient growth of urban centers outside the metropolis. We test this using data of economic growth in Ceara, compared with trends of urbanization and its concentration level, changing economic structures (distribution between agriculture, industry and services) in the regions outside the metropolis and levels of productivity. Results lead to the conclusion that economic policy measures should consider a spatial reallocation of public expenditures for physical and human infrastructures, leading to a spatial urban restructuring.

Revealing Superfluid--Mott-Insulator Transition in an Optical Lattice

We study (by an exact numerical scheme) the single-particle density matrix of $\sim 10^3$ ultracold atoms in an optical lattice with a parabolic confining potential. Our simulation is directly relevant to the interpretation and further development of the recent pioneering experiment by Greiner et al. In particular, we show that restructuring of the spatial distribution of the superfluid component when a domain of Mott-insulator phase appears in the system, results in a fine structure of the particle momentum distribution. This feature may be used to locate the point of the superfluid--Mott-insulator transition.Comment: 4 pages (12 figures), Latex. (A Latex macro is corrected

Promoting Industrial Clusters: Evidence from Ireland

This paper analyses the spatial concentration and sectoral specialisation of local enterprises (LEs) and multinational enterprises (MNEs) in Ireland. Entropy indices are used as indicators of spatial and sectoral clustering in Irish manufacturing. Correlation coefficients are calculated to estimate the co-location patterns of LEs and MNEs, allowing an investigation of the overall impact of stated industrial and regional policy goals on the Irish manufacturing sector. The pattern of spatial changes found suggests that market forces were already driving enterprises out of more concentrated locations prior to the introduction of policies to promote greater spatial dispersion in the late 1990s. MNEs have become more sectorally specialised over the period, which is not surprising as policy is deliberately selective in attracting MNEs to key high tech manufacturing sectors. The less concentrated sectoral pattern amongst LEs enterprises is consistent with general restructuring in Irish manufacturing from lower- to higher-tech sectors, and the high sectoral correlation for high-tech MNEs and LEs suggests that LEs are following MNEs into the same sectors.geographic concentration, sectoral specialisation, entropy indices, MNEs, LEs, public policy

Interchange Reconnection Alfven Wave Generation

Given recent observational results of interchange reconnection processes in the solar corona and the theoretical development of the S-Web model for the slow solar wind, we extend the analysis of the 3D MHD simulation of interchange reconnection by Edmondson et al. (Astrophys. J. 707, 1427, 2009). Specifically, we analyze the consequences of the dynamic streamer-belt jump that corresponds to flux opening by interchange reconnection. Information about the magnetic field restructuring by interchange reconnection is carried throughout the system by Alfven waves propagating away from the reconnection region, distributing the shear and twist imparted by the driving flows, including shedding the injected stress-energy and accumulated magnetic helicity along newly open fieldlines. We quantify the properties of the reconnection-generated wave activity in the simulation. There is a localized high-frequency component associated with the current sheet/reconnection site and an extended low-frequency component associated with the large-scale torsional Alfven wave generated from the interchange reconnection field restructuring. The characteristic wavelengths of the torsional Alfven wave reflect the spatial size of the energized bipolar flux region. Lastly, we discuss avenues of future research by modeling these interchange reconnection-driven waves and investigating their observational signatures.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Solar Physic

The difference that tenure makes

This paper argues that housing tenures cannot be reduced to either production relations or consumption relations. Instead, they need to be understood as modes of housing distribution, and as having complex and dynamic relations with social classes. Building on a critique of both the productionist and the consumptionist literature, as well as of formalist accounts of the relations between tenure and class, the paper attempts to lay the foundations for a new theory of housing tenure. In order to do this, a new theory of class is articulated, which is then used to throw new light on the nature of class-tenure relations

Inequality and identity in contemporary processes of labour market restructuring

Contemporary processes of labour market restructuring have resulted in increasing social and spacial inequalities in the United Kingdom. While the well discussed-issues of class, race and gender continue to be correlated to inequality, the decline in manufacturing jobs and rise in low-level service work has brought a new reality of identity-correlation. To remain employed, workers must increasingly transcend their geography and current job role; presenting an identity that is appealing to employers. Thus, in today's labour market with its increasing economic polarisation, previously strong social and work identities are now challenged by the logic of capital

Competing Ideas of Social Justice and Space: Locating Critiques of Housing Renewal in Theory and in Practice

This article considers the experience of the English government's policy of Housing Market Renewal from the perspective of spatial justice. The paper first proposes an analytical framework that situates competing notions of territorial social justice within a space of complex sociospatial relations. The dialectic of two formulations of social justice is first set up, comparing 'procedural' or deontological forms of justice and the distributional justice of outcomes. Soja's formulation of spatial justice is advanced as an appropriate balance between spatial and socio-historic contexts for the justice question. Drawing on the literature on sociospatial relations, concrete critiques and justifications of HMR are then positioned in terms of the intersection of structuring principles and policy fields. The role of demolition in urban restructuring programmes is used to explore the differential spatialities involved in different justicial perspectives. It is concluded that 'gentrification' critiques of HMR are only partial in their evaluation of justice and lack normative power. Some practical implications for the design of urban restructuring policies are offered