Stable and Efficient Structures for the Content Production and Consumption in Information Communities

Real-world information communities exhibit inherent structures that characterize a system that is stable and efficient for content production and consumption. In this paper, we study such structures through mathematical modelling and analysis. We formulate a generic model of a community in which each member decides how they allocate their time between content production and consumption with the objective of maximizing their individual reward. We define the community system as "stable and efficient" when a Nash equilibrium is reached while the social welfare of the community is maximized. We investigate the conditions for forming a stable and efficient community under two variations of the model representing different internal relational structures of the community. Our analysis results show that the structure with "a small core of celebrity producers" is the optimally stable and efficient for a community. These analysis results provide possible explanations to the sociological observations such as "the Law of the Few" and also provide insights into how to effectively build and maintain the structure of information communities.Comment: 21 page

Microbial protein out of thin air : fixation of nitrogen gas by an autotrophic hydrogen-oxidizing bacterial enrichment

For the production of edible microbial protein (MP), ammonia generated by the Haber-Bosch process or reclaimed ammonia from waste streams is typically considered as the nitrogen source. These processes for ammonia production are highly energy intensive. In this study, the potential for using nitrogen gas (N-2) as a direct nitrogen source for MP production by hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria (HOB) was evaluated. The use of N-2 versus ammonium as nitrogen source during the enrichment process resulted in differentiation of the bacterial community composition of the enrichments. A few previously unknown potential N-2-fixing HOB taxa (i.e., representatives of the genus Azonexus and the family Comamonadaceae) dominated the enrichments. The biomass yield of a N-2-fixing HOB enrichment was 30-50% lower than that of the ammonium-based HOB enrichment from the same inoculum source. The dried biomass of N-2-fixing HOB had a high protein content (62.0 +/- 6.3%) and an essential amino acid profile comparable to MP from ammonium-based HOB. MP from N-2-fixing HOB could potentially be produced in situ without entailing the emissions caused by ammonia production and transportation by conventional means. It could be a promising substitute for N-2-fixing protein-rich soybean because it has 70% higher protein content and double energy conversion efficiency from solar energy to biomass

Infrastructure coverage of the ural federal district regions: assessment metodology and diagnostic results

The article examines the infrastructure as one of the essential elements in the economic system. The authors consider the development stages of this concept in the scientific community and provide the opinions of a number of researchers as to the role and place of the infrastructure in the economic system. The article provides a brief genesis of approaches to describing the infrastructure and conferring its functions on individual branches. The authors emphasize the higher importance of infrastructure coverage with the economy transition to machine production. Two key methodological approaches are identified to describe the substance and content of the infrastructure: industrial and functional. The authors offer their methodology of assessing the infrastructure coverage of regional-level territories. The methodology is based on identifying a combination of specific indicators the values of which can be used to evaluate the development level of individual infrastructure elements. The indicative analysis being the basis of the methodological apparatus helps make a judgment of any phenomenon by comparing the current observed values with the previously adopted threshold levels. Such comparison makes it possible to classify the observations by the «norm—pre-crisis—crisis» scale. An essential advantage of this method is the possibility of standardizing the indicators, or, in other words, bringing them to one comparable conditional value. Thus, you can get estimates for individual blocks of indicators and a complex assessment for the whole set in general. The authors have identified four main infrastructure elements: transport, communications, public utility services and healthcare. The methodology includes 21 indicators all together. The test estimates based on the authors’ methodology revealed the defects in the development of the Ural regions` infrastructure. The article provides a brief analysis of the obtained data with identifying individual indicators and areas.The research has been supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Project № 14-18-00574)

(WP 2019-01) Stratification Economics as an Economics of Exclusion

Stratification Economics (SE) is an emergent sub-field in economics, but its JEL classification misrepresents its content and its relationship to the whole of economics. This paper first develops a more accurate characterization of SE by identifying its differences with Mainstream Economics (ME), its commonalities with economics in a broad sense, and how the combination of these differences and commonalities define it as a distinct research program. It then applies this definition to an economic goods taxonomy that makes a distinction between local public goods and common pool goods to interpret SE’S distinct research program as an economics of exclusion. The paper closes with a discussion of how SE might explain socioeconomic change in social group identity terms

The Size Conundrum: Why Online Knowledge Markets Can Fail at Scale

In this paper, we interpret the community question answering websites on the StackExchange platform as knowledge markets, and analyze how and why these markets can fail at scale. A knowledge market framing allows site operators to reason about market failures, and to design policies to prevent them. Our goal is to provide insights on large-scale knowledge market failures through an interpretable model. We explore a set of interpretable economic production models on a large empirical dataset to analyze the dynamics of content generation in knowledge markets. Amongst these, the Cobb-Douglas model best explains empirical data and provides an intuitive explanation for content generation through concepts of elasticity and diminishing returns. Content generation depends on user participation and also on how specific types of content (e.g. answers) depends on other types (e.g. questions). We show that these factors of content generation have constant elasticity---a percentage increase in any of the inputs leads to a constant percentage increase in the output. Furthermore, markets exhibit diminishing returns---the marginal output decreases as the input is incrementally increased. Knowledge markets also vary on their returns to scale---the increase in output resulting from a proportionate increase in all inputs. Importantly, many knowledge markets exhibit diseconomies of scale---measures of market health (e.g., the percentage of questions with an accepted answer) decrease as a function of number of participants. The implications of our work are two-fold: site operators ought to design incentives as a function of system size (number of participants); the market lens should shed insight into complex dependencies amongst different content types and participant actions in general social networks.Comment: The 27th International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW), 201

2017 Texas Bays and Estuaries Meeting

Program for the 2017 Texas Bays and Estuaries Meeting held in Port Aransas, Texas, April 12-13, 2017.Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, Coastal Bend Bays Foundation, The University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Sea Grant Texas at Texas A&M University, Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, and Mission Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve.Marine Scienc

What Green Economy? Diverse agendas, their tensions and potential futures

The 'green economy' has become a prominent global concept for debating desirable futures, while recasting or marginalising ‘sustainable development’. The dominant agenda promotes state incentives for private-sector solutions through two parallel approaches: A techno-environmental Keynesian agenda attempts to stimulate eco-innovation which can become more resource-efficient and economically competitive. And a green markets agenda seeks to make natural resources more economically visible, as a basis to alleviate poverty. Like sustainable development, green economy agendas claim to redress the socially unequal access to natural resources. These claims have been widely questioned, thus generating extra remedial proposals, opposition and alternative frameworks. The debate features diverse agendas for co-constructing ‘green’ with ‘economy’, especially for assigning economic value to natural resources or environmental burdens. Struggles over potential futures take the form of disputes over defining, allocating and valuing resources – i.e. what counts for a ‘green economy’

Дослідження управління багатонаціональною корпорацією, на прикладі компаніїb "Кока-Кола"

The main purpose of this research paper is to investigate system of management of multinational corporations and to give recommendations as for system of management at Coca-Cola Company. The main tasks of master research paper are the following: - To ascertain whether the multinational corporation are social responsible. - To ascertain whether the MNC in Nigeria have any contribution to the economic advancement of the nation. - To ascertain whether they contribute to the technological development of the countries. - To determine the environmental factors that influences the operations of the Multinationals Corporation Coca-Cola Company. - To give recommendations as for improvement of activity os Coca-Cola Company and industry of beverages.Master’s research paper critically evaluates the challenges Coca-Cola Company experiences while managing its operations in geographical and culturally diverse contexts. An overview of Coca-Cola Company and brief analysis of the global contemporary landscape is initially examined. A critical evaluation is conducted of the Global competitive, Political-Legal, Economic, Socio-cultural and Ethical challenges experienced by Coca-Cola Company. Ways to improve Coca-Cola's operations in the African markets were proposed.Introduction. 1. The theoretical framework and study of Multinational Corporation 1.1 Meanings and definition of Multinational Corporation 1.2 The managerial functions in international business 1.3 Important finding in managing Multinational Corporation 2. Research and analysis of Coca-Cola Company 2.1 Introduction to Coca-Cola Company 2.2 SWOT-analysis of the industrial and economic activity of Coca-Cola Company 2.3 Analysis of the system of management at Coca-Cola Company 3. Recommendations in management for Coca-Cola Company that operates in different geographical and cultural contexts 3.1 Recommendations as for the corporate social responsibly at Coca-Cola company 3.2 Recommendations as for using stevia in producing beverages at Coca-Cola Company 3.3 Recommendations as for strategic issues that Coca-Cola Company is facing today 4. Special part 4.1 Current trends in the field of Coca-Cola Company 4.2 Activities of multinational corporations in the development of Nigeria 5. Rationale for recommendations 5.1 Statement for recommendations at Coca-Cola Company 5.2 Recommendations as for using stevia in producing beverages at Coca-Cola Company 6. Occupational health and safety in emergencies 6.1 Safety and health for Coca-Cola Company 6.2 Protection against specific risks in safety and health 7. Environmental issues 7.1 Environmental impact of products in Coca-Cola Company 7.2 Coca-Cola sustainability plan Conclusions References Appendice