Interrelationships between human capital and social capital in small and medium sized firms: The effect of age and sector of activity

This study explores the interconnection between human factors and social factors and analyses the relations influenced by the specific activity and age of firms. A statistical approach is implemented which applies factor analysis techniques, based on a sample of small and medium sized firms from four sectors of activity which are between four and fifteen years old, and are split into three time periods. It is found that there are interconnected groups of human capital and social capital factors, although a sizeable proportion of the literature conceptually separates these factors and deals with them individually. It is also ascertained that this relationship is influenced by the field of activity and the age of the firms.Entrepreneurship, Factor analysis, Human capital, Management, Social capital

Jessica Felicio

Even before high school, Jessica Felicio found herself struggling with an eating disorder. By the time she discovered that what she had—bulimia—was an illness, she had already collapsed from malnutrition and exhaustion after struggling with bullying for most of her life. During rehab, Jessica found herself beginning to binge eat and vomit again, starting the harmful cycle all over. To read Jessica’s full story, visit Stories of Andrews at andrews.edu/stories. I had the privilege of working on this powerful story about eating disorders with Letitia Bullard, student chaplain, who identified this story and interviewed Jessica. I hope you enjoy this very transparent and direct account of this student’s journey. Jessica, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for being part of the spirit of Andrews.https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/stories-2017-fall/1002/thumbnail.jp

Generalized Metropolis dynamics with a generalized master equation: An approach for time-independent and time-dependent Monte Carlo simulations of generalized spin systems

The extension of Boltzmann-Gibbs thermostatistics, proposed by Tsallis, introduces an additional parameter $q$ to the inverse temperature $\beta$. Here, we show that a previously introduced generalized Metropolis dynamics to evolve spin models is not local and does not obey the detailed energy balance. In this dynamics, locality is only retrieved for $q=1$, which corresponds to the standard Metropolis algorithm. Non-locality implies in very time consuming computer calculations, since the energy of the whole system must be reevaluated, when a single spin is flipped. To circumvent this costly calculation, we propose a generalized master equation, which gives rise to a local generalized Metropolis dynamics that obeys the detailed energy balance. To compare the different critical values obtained with other generalized dynamics, we perform Monte Carlo simulations in equilibrium for Ising model. By using the short time non-equilibrium numerical simulations, we also calculate for this model: the critical temperature, the static and dynamical critical exponents as function of $q$. Even for $q\neq 1$, we show that suitable time evolving power laws can be found for each initial condition. Our numerical experiments corroborate the literature results, when we use non-local dynamics, showing that short time parameter determination works also in this case. However, the dynamics governed by the new master equation leads to different results for critical temperatures and also the critical exponents affecting universality classes. We further propose a simple algorithm to optimize modeling the time evolution with a power law considering in a log-log plot two successive refinements.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures and 5 table

Impact of Nitrogen Availability on the Accumulation of Vegetative Lipids in Sorghum

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is a versatile and prosperous feedstock crop for renewable energy production. With the increase in bioenergy demand, the production of higher oil content per biomass in a feedstock crop is a highly desirable trait for the biofuel conversion process yield. Especially if this outcome can be achieved using fewer inputs in the field, such as nitrogen. In microalgae species, nitrogen limitation has been associated with changes in the carbon storage metabolic pathway favoring triacylglycerol (TAG) accumulation. In this context, this study aimed to assess whether nitrogen starvation would result in a similar outcome in higher plants. Nitrogen limitation\u27s impact on sorghum vegetative lipids accumulation was investigated in two sorghum genotypes. In a soilless trial, greenhouse-grown plants were submitted to three levels of nitrogen supply: 0.0 mM, 0.75 mM, and 15 mM KNO3 delivered in nitrogen-free Hoagland\u27s liquid solution. Total fatty acids (TFA), TAG and biomass were analyzed in three developmental stages (7-leaf, flowering, and post-flowering). At the 7-leaf stage, lower nitrogen availability resulted in significantly higher TAG content, where the values for 0.0, 0.75, and 15 mM N treatments were 0.97, 0.72, and 0.44 TAG %DW, respectively (P=0.04). The same results pattern was observed at the flowering stage, where lower nitrogen resulted in 1.24 TAG %DW, while higher nitrogen resulted in 0.78 TAG %DW. Post-flowering TAG content did not present a significant difference across nitrogen treatments. The TFA content increased with nitrogen availability, and the nitrogen treatment effect was significant at the flowering (PP=0.02) stages. Across all stages, biomass was significantly higher with increased nitrogen availability. The research findings are initial steps in comprehending the impact of nitrogen availability on sorghum vegetative lipids and provide valuable insights for optimizing the balance of nitrogen application and biomass yield ratio to achieve valuable and sustainable sorghum production for biofuel feedstock. Advisors: Thomas Clemente and Jeffrey Mowe

Justice and Reconciliation as Social Recognition: A Reading from The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate of Hegel and Its Update in Axel Honneth

Our research reflects on the passing of a justice model linked to moral law imputes, positive punishment for non-compliance, for a model that reconciles justice. Following this line of thought, we add the contributions of Axel Honneth, according to which the establishment of a normative principle of justice must provide guidance for political action. This was only made possible to the extent that such principles are allied to social practices. By analyzing the Spirit of Christianity and its Fate, an early work of Hegel, we intend to verify the relevance of the concept of justice, for the design of the hegelian attack on the positive law and subsequent defense of ethics as reconciliation and fullness of life. From the understanding of justice as reconciliation in Hegel we approach that which underlies the reconstruction of social practices as Honneth understands

Nonequilibrium scaling explorations on a 2D Z(5)-symmetric model

We have investigated the dynamic critical behavior of the two-dimensional Z(5)-symmetric spin model by using short-time Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We have obtained estimates of some critical points in its rich phase diagram and included, among the usual critical lines the study of first-order (weak) transition by looking into the order-disorder phase transition. Besides, we also investigated the soft-disorder phase transition by considering empiric methods. A study of the behavior of $\beta /\nu z$ along the self-dual critical line has been performed and special attention has been devoted to the critical bifurcation point, or FZ (Fateev-Zamolodchikov) point. Firstly, by using a refinement method and taking into account simulations out-of-equilibrium, we were able to localize parameters of this point. In a second part of our study, we turned our attention to the behavior of the model at the early stage of its time evolution in order to find the dynamic critical exponent z as well as the static critical exponents $\beta$ and $$ of the FZ-point on square lattices. The values of the static critical exponents and parameters are in good agreement with the exact results, and the dynamic critical exponent $z\approx 2.28$ very close of the 4-state Potts model ($z\approx 2.29$).Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure