413 research outputs found
Social networks and labour productivity in Europe: An empirical investigation
This paper uses firm-level data recorded in the AMADEUS database to
investigate the distribution of labour productivity in different European
countries. We find that the upper tail of the empirical productivity
distributions follows a decaying power-law, whose exponent is obtained
by a semi-parametric estimation technique recently developed by Clementi et al.
(2006). The emergence of "fat tails" in productivity distribution has already
been detected in Di Matteo et al. (2005) and explained by means of a model of
social network. Here we show that this model is tested on a broader sample of
countries having different patterns of social network structure. These
different social attitudes, measured using a social capital indicator, reflect
in the power-law exponent estimates, verifying in this way the existence of
linkages among firms' productivity performance and social network.Comment: LaTeX2e; 18 pages with 3 figures; Journal of Economic Interaction and
Coordination, in pres
Teachers as leaders in a knowledge society: encouraging signs of a new professionalism
[Abstract]: Challenges confronting schools worldwide are greater than ever,and, likewise, many teachers possess capabilities, talents, and formal credentials more sophisticated than ever. However, the responsibility and authority accorded
to teachers have not grown significantly, nor has the image of teaching as a profession advanced significantly. The question becomes, what are the implications for the image and status of the teaching profession as the concept of knowledge society takes a firm hold in the industrialized world? This article addresses the philosophical underpinnings of teacher leadership manifested in case studies where schools sought to achieve the generation of new knowledge as part of a process of whole-school revitalization. Specifically, this article reports on Australian research that has illuminated the work of teacher leaders engaged in the IDEAS project, a joint school revitalization initiative of the University
of Southern Queensland and the Queensland Department of Education and the Arts
Exact calculation of the skyrmion lifetime in a ferromagnetic Bose condensate
The tunneling rate of a skyrmion in ferromagnetic spin-1/2 Bose condensates
through an off-centered potential barrier is calculated exactly with the
periodic instanton method. The prefactor is shown to depend on the chemical
potential of the core atoms, at which level the atom tunnels. Our results can
be readily extended to estimate the lifetime of other topological excitations
in the condensate, such as vortices and monopoles.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, to appear Phys. Rev.
Situationally edited empathy: an effect of socio-economic structure on individual choice
Criminological theory still operates with deficient models of the offender as agent, and of social influences on the agent’s decision-making process. This paper takes one ‘emotion’, empathy, which is theoretically of considerable importance in influencing the choices made by agents; particularly those involving criminal or otherwise harmful action. Using a framework not of rational action, but of ‘rationalised action’, the paper considers some of the effects on individual psychology of social, economic, political and cultural structure. It is suggested that the climate-setting effects of these structures promote normative definitions of social situations which allow unempathic, harmful action to be rationalised through the situational editing of empathy. The ‘crime is normal’ argument can therefore be extended to include the recognition that the uncompassionate state of mind of the criminal actor is a reflection of the self-interested values which govern non-criminal action in wider society
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