Are economic ideas a sustainable commons? A study of the exchange of creative economics

In this essay I claim that productive markets need not necessarily involve clearly defined and enforced property rights, upon which a price system can be used to allocate resources. I shall pursue this thought by an examination of the mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of economic ideas, and link academic norms to the emerging theoretical justification for open source software, and “free culture”.economic ideas, commons, free culture, journals

The Spread of Economic Theology: the Flat Tax in Romania

This paper is a case study that traces the spread of the flat tax, and analyzes the conditions that are necessary for its adoption. Of most concern are the early adopters, and since by definition there are only a few, empirical cases must be compared to hypothetical cases. By providing the factual history of the flat tax, with biographical accounts of key players, a conjectural history can thus be formed to establish which of the many variables were especially important. I will argue that faith – an underlying belief somewhat disjointed from certain knowledge – was essential.economic theology, flat tax, epistemic communities, Romanian economy

Using big data for customer centric marketing

This chapter deliberates on “big data” and provides a short overview of business intelligence and emerging analytics. It underlines the importance of data for customer-centricity in marketing. This contribution contends that businesses ought to engage in marketing automation tools and apply them to create relevant, targeted customer experiences. Today’s business increasingly rely on digital media and mobile technologies as on-demand, real-time marketing has become more personalised than ever. Therefore, companies and brands are striving to nurture fruitful and long lasting relationships with customers. In a nutshell, this chapter explains why companies should recognise the value of data analysis and mobile applications as tools that drive consumer insights and engagement. It suggests that a strategic approach to big data could drive consumer preferences and may also help to improve the organisational performance.peer-reviewe

Work hardening of calcium fluoride

Imperial Users onl

Hazards to golden-mantled ground squirrels and associated secondary hazard potential from strychnine baiting for forest pocket gophers

Radio telemetry and capture-recapture techniques were used to evaluate the hazards to golden-mantled ground squirrels (Spermophilus lateralis) from hand baiting with 0.5% strychnine-treated oats for western pocket gophers (Thomomys mazama) on conifer plantations in eastern Oregon. Toxicology data were collected on field-killed and caged ground squirrels and on caged mink (Mustela vison), great horned owls (Bubo virginianus), and red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis). Ground squirrel populations were reduced 50 to 75% following underground baiting for pocket gophers. Maximum amount of strychnine alkaloid found in cheek pouches and carcass of a field-killed golden-mantled ground squirrel was 2.88 mg. Mean amount of strychnine in carcasses was 0.35 mg; almost all occurred in the gut. The estimated LD50 for mink was 0.6 mg/kg. The lowest lethal dose for great horned owls and red-tailed hawks was 7.7 mg/kg and 10.2 mg/kg, respectively. The LD50 for owls and hawks was not determined. Long-term effects on golden-mantled ground squirrel populations and secondary hazard potential to owls and hawks were judged to be minimal. Wild mustelids as large as mink could be adversely affected by consuming the gut content of strychnine-killed golden-mantled ground squirrels

Modelling Citation Networks

The distribution of the number of academic publications as a function of citation count for a given year is remarkably similar from year to year. We measure this similarity as a width of the distribution and find it to be approximately constant from year to year. We show that simple citation models fail to capture this behaviour. We then provide a simple three parameter citation network model using a mixture of local and global search processes which can reproduce the correct distribution over time. We use the citation network of papers from the hep-th section of arXiv to test our model. For this data, around 20% of citations use global information to reference recently published papers, while the remaining 80% are found using local searches. We note that this is consistent with other studies though our motivation is very different from previous work. Finally, we also find that the fluctuations in the size of an academic publication's bibliography is important for the model. This is not addressed in most models and needs further work.Comment: 29 pages, 22 figure