Industrial Development in the South Caucasus - A Comparative Perspective

Against the background of amplified industrial policy initiatives, the paper reviews the development of industries in the Southern Caucasus from a comparative perspective. The analysis is organized based on four objectives in industrial policy: increasing economic performance, expanding exports, strengthening economic resilience and creating jobs. The paper explores Armenia's export-oriented development model, which lacks translation into relevant domestic value capture and job creation, Azerbaijan's failed liberation from oil-based industries and Georgia's decreased industrial development. Nevertheless, Georgia shows comparatively high domestic value capture and positive employment effects

Forming Resilient Rostered Ministers: a Proposed Model for First Call Ministry Formation for the North/West Lower Michigan Synod-ELCA

According to the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth selected twelve men to be his disciples. Three years later, one of the twelve had betrayed Jesus and ended his own liferepresenting an apostolic attrition rate of eight percent. One challenge to Christian denominations today is the attrition rate of trained pastors and deacons serving in congregational settings. Research suggests that up to 50 percent of pastors leave congregational ministry within ten years of their ordination. Other sources dispute these figures. Although up to 20% may leave congregational ministry in favor of specialized ministries, further study, or retirement, a significant number report leaving because conflict and/or financial struggles simply wear them down or cause them to question whether the call was still upon them. This dissertation examines the rate of first call clergy attrition in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and offers a strategy that a synod can use to support its first call pastors and deacons in developing greater resilience in their first call and continuing to pursue their vocation as ordained ministers. Section One examines the available data on ELCA candidacy and attrition as well as some of the challenges reported by first-call pastors, especially those in the millennial generation. Section Two surveys current education strategies employed by the ELCA and other denominations for the first two to three years of pastoral ministry. Section Three makes scriptural and theological case for continuing review of first call formation and proposes a theory to undergird formation today. Sections Four and Five offer a strategy for a three-year first call formation curriculum designed to assist first call pastors and deacons to develop more resilient ix leadership and find joy in God’s call to public ministry for as long as God intends. Tables, a Glossary and the four-part strategy and supporting material are found in the appendix

The Europeanization of the Bundestag: From Observer to Player? Bertelsmann Studies

Never before has the role of the German Bundestag with regard to European integration been so intensively discussed as during the European financial and debt crisis. However, it is easy to overlook the fact that major changes have come about in the participation of the German Parliament in European policy. On the one hand, this is as a result of the Treaty of Lisbon, which emphasizes the role of national parliaments in Article 12 TEU and grants them additional rights in some fields. On the other hand, it is also because of German law, not least spurred on by the rulings of the Federal Constitutional Court, ranging from its rulings on the European Arrest Warrant in 2005 and the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 to its rulings on the socalled rescue packages in 2011 and 2012. Upon closer examination of the most recent developments, it thus becomes apparent that the Bundestag’s political actions can now no longer be seen as “empty” as is alleged in most of the more dated specialist literature. The changes in the law over the past few years have enabled the Bundestag to play both a monitoring and participatory role in German European policy

Intramural duodenal hematoma: clinical course and imaging findings

Background: Intramural duodenal hematoma is a rare condition. Different imaging modalities are at hand for diagnosis. Purpose: To identify patients with intramural duodenal hematoma and report imaging findings and clinical courses. Material and Methods: Typical imaging patterns using ultrasound, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging were carried out on 10 patients. Results: The mean patient age was 7.5 years. The average disease duration was 13 months. Clinical signs of improvement were observed within 16 days. Residues were still detectable at long-term follow-up. Conclusion: For patients with intramural duodenal wall hematoma, diagnosis should be considered early. Typical imaging findings should be known to ensure optimal treatment

A liberal developmental state in Georgia?

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may The Author Christian Timm Christian Timm is a researcher at PFH Goettingen and works within the framework of the research network "Institutions and Institutional Change in Postsocialism" funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). His research focuses on stateeconomy relations and economic policy in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. He holds a degree from European-University Viadrina and is a PhD candidate at Humboldt-University Berlin. 1 A liberal developmental state in Georgia? State dominance and Washington Consensus in the post--communist region. Christian Timm * Abstract The article analyzes state dominance in Georgia's economy between 2003 and 2010 from the perspective of the (new) developmental state. The specific interlinkage of economic model, law and administration through which state interventions may generate market-enhancing effects provides the analytical framework for the examination of Georgia's institutional setting

Integer convex minimization by mixed integer linear optimization

Minimizing a convex function over the integral points of a bounded convex set is polynomial in fixed dimension (Grötschel et al., 1988). We provide an alternative, short, and geometrically motivated proof of this result. In particular, we present an oracle-polynomial algorithm based on a mixed integer linear optimization oracle

eine Verteilungsanalyse

Wir gehen der Frage nach, ob die gegenwärtige Vermögensungleichheit in Deutschland auf eine Dominanz von Erbschaften im oberen Bereich der Verteilung zurückzuführen ist. Auf Basis der PHF‐Daten finden wir, dass die Vermögen der Deutschen zu etwa zwei Dritteln auf Eigenleistung und zu etwa einem Drittel auf Erbschaft zurückgehen. Diese Proportion verändert sich entlang der Vermögensverteilung wenig. Insbesondere nimmt die relative Bedeutung von Erbschaften mit zunehmendem Privatvermögen nicht systematisch zu. Diese Ergebnisse sind robust hinsichtlich unterschiedlicher Altersgruppen, Vermögensdefinitionen und Kapitalisierungsmethoden für die unteren 99 %.This paper investigates the role of inheritance in the distribution of wealth in Germany. Recently collected survey data allow us to compute inheritance‐wealth ratios for various quantiles based on several assumptions concerning the capitalization of past bequests and gifts. Our results indicate that wealth inequality below the top‐1% is hardly affected by inheritances: the share of inheritances in wealth is about one third on average and it does not change much across quantiles of the wealth distribution. A number of robustness checks confirm the validity of this finding

Assessing the accuracy of δ<sup>18<\sup>O<sub>sw<?sub> estimates from corals: lessons from simple Monte Carlo simulations

EGU2008-A-04391 Paired measurements of δ18O and Sr/Ca in coral aragonite are routinely used for deriving estimates of δ18Osw and, by extension, sea surface salinity variations over the past centuries. However, in practice, the accuracy (or the error) of these estimates is often difficult to assess. Here, we use simulated proxy data and Monte-Carlo simulations to investigate the accuracy of δ18Osw estimates from paired coral δ18O and Sr/Ca measurements. First, we estimate expected values of coral Sr/Ca and δ18O from instrumental or reanalysis data of sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface salinity (SSS). We then add the typical analytical errors onto the expected Sr/Ca (δ18O) data as random numbers and compute δ18Osw+error from the noisy proxy data for a 1000 sample Monte Carlo. From this simple Monte Carlo simulation, the range of correlation coefficients between δ18Osw+error and expected δ18Osw is estimated. As expected, we find that this range mainly depends on the magnitude of the actual SSS variations at a given site, as well as on the slope of the δ18Osw-SSS relationship. A comparison with real coral-based δ18Osw reconstructions from multiple sites indicates that correlations between reconstructed δ18Osw and instrumental SSS fall within the range of correlation coefficients predicted based on our Monte-Carlo simulation. Thus, our simple simulation exercise may help to assess the feasibility of δ18Osw and salinity reconstructions from corals in different climatic settings, provided that (i) some instrumental data of δ18Osw and/or SSS is available, and (ii) the slope of the δ18Osw-SSS relationship is known