Factor productivity in the Argentinean agriculture

This paper is aimed at investigating the endogeneity of the total factor productivity in the Argentinean agriculture. In a simple model ofendogenous technological change, the implementation of new techniques of production would depend upon sectoral relative prices, and upon the overall endowment of capital and land relative to labor. It is found that the estimations using data covering the years 1939-1984 do not reject the hypothesis of endogeneity of technological change as a function of the aforementioned variables. It is also found that the fiscal deficit negatively affects the implementation of new techniques. The coefficient of labor in the value added of the agricultural sector (cereals and oilseeds, livestock and fisheries) is 0.28 according to the estimates of the 1973 input-output matrix data, a value that is very close to the estimate used in this paper.Total factor productivity, available and implemented technologies, cointegrated vector autoregressions, Barttlet correction, eigenvalues

The Tourism of the Authentic in a Rural Idyll: The Case of a Family Organized Activity in the South of France

Ethnography is a multi-method human-conducted examination of what humans do, say, think and believe. As Sherry Ortner flawlessly explains: “ethnography has always meant the attempt to understand another life world using the self – as much of it as possible – as the instrument of knowing.” (2006: 3) My thesis will be devoted to study how people experience alternative lifestyles and new ways of living in rurality, among nature and natural resources. We will meet a Parisian couple Yann and Corinne, with their two daughters, Emma and Camille who decided to move from Paris to the South of France in Eoulx. More precisely, the focus will be on the authenticity of my protagonists’ approach – namely eco-tourism. Their story begins three years ago, when they decided to change their life and adopt an alternative lifestyle in the mountains, surrounded by animals and nature. My research starts there, when they decided to leave urban areas to go to what they imagined as being peaceful and natural rural environments: here is the story of a ‘a journey to a rural idyll’. Mark Schucksmith stated: “Rural studies have highlighted a rural idyll as something to which many aspire, perhaps as a vision of a good place to live or as a repository of values.” It is clear that Yann, Corinne and their two daughters pursued a ‘Quest for Authenticity’ by thinking of the rural as being ‘authentic’ and ‘refreshing’ compared to loud, polluted and sickening urban environments that they left. Indeed, this led them to migrate to the South of France and established an activity based on eco-tourism, namely ‘Destination Ailleurs,’ which aims at inviting their guests to a new destination

Agricultural supply response in the Argentinean economy

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo estimar la forma reducida de una función de oferta agropecuaria de la economía argentina en el marco de un modelo de equilibrio general. Los resultados de la estimación de la oferta agropecuaria con datos que cubren los años 1939-1984 muestran que hay una elasticidad precio de oferta de largo plazo de aproximadamente 1.3 que es estadísticamente significativa, y que la convergencia al estado estacionario se logra en aproximadamente nueve años. Esta estimación de la elasticidad de oferta agropecuaria es aproximadamente tres veces más grande que estimaciones previas con modelos de equilibrio parcial.This paper estimates a reduced-form agricultural supply function for the Argentinean economy within the framework of a general equilibrium model. The results of the estimation using data covering the years 1939-1984 show that there is a statistically significant long-run supply price elasticity of agricultural output of about 1.3, and that the convergence to an equilibrium state is achieved in about nine years. The estimated agricultural supply price elasticity is found to be about three times larger than previous estimates using partial equilibrium models.Instituto de Investigaciones Económica

Maintenance Logistics Management: A Survey Study in the Moroccan Industrial Context

Global logistics system performance could not be achieved without an available intern logistics system for production systems.  Indeed, availability is the fastest path to performance where maintenance logistics occupies the central role.In this paper we define a systemic framework for maintenance logistics to manage all maintenance resources and their interactions.  In order to define main maintenance logistics management problems we conducted a structured survey study in the Moroccan industrial context. The study presents results based on 152 surveys responses from 281 surveys addressed to different industrial production systems. Results analysed on SPSS statistical software revealed an insufficient involvement level for production operator and insufficient organisation level for maintenance logistics environment. Therefore we propose a new sustainable model conception based on empirical conclusions. Keywords— Maintenance logistics system; management model; Operator involvement; maintenance logistics environment; SPSS software; maintenance improvement

Maturity level of predictive maintenance application in small and medium-sized industries: Case of Morocco

In order to remain competitive in the long term and to push the company's efficiency to its limits, entrepreneurs are more and more open to the idea of integrating into Industry 4.0 aiming mainly at filling the important downtimes and the associated productivity losses by implementing predictive maintenance. This concept, common in developed countries, is much less widespread in Morocco and even less in small and medium-sized Moroccan companies. The objective of this article is to study the maturity level of predictive maintenance in Moroccan small and medium-sized enterprises, through a questionnaire validated by experts and made available to several companies. Valid data from 115 companies throughout the kingdom operating in different sectors were collected and processed by descriptive and factorial analysis under SPSS software. The results obtained show that only 33% of our sample were able to implement predictive maintenance, and that the expected benefits of this approach are the minimization of downtime at 96.5% and the increase in productivity at 94.8%, The main challenges observed are the lack of team motivation and a corporate culture unsuited to digitalization, which represents 42.277% of the total variance, lack of financial resources at 12.916% of the total variance and lack of data protection at 11.644% of the total variance. This analysis indicates that the level of maturity regarding the application of predictive maintenance in Moroccan small and medium-sized companies is low, these rates can be used to improve the root causes

Dynamic polarity control by a tunable protein oscillator in bacteria

International audienc

Contribution to Integrating Maintainability into Preliminary Design Based on TRIZ

In the face of the competition, the companies have, possibly more than in the past, a need to innovate. However, if the innovation can be of various natures (product, process, methods, organization…), the search for new solutions to technical problems as soon as the Design phase takes a non-negligible part, and certainly constitutes most of the Innovations “radical”, especially when they relate to the product. Conventional methods designed to resolve these problems are often psychological character: methods of creativity. The best known example is the brainstorming session. In all object creation models, of products or of development it is essential, today, to take into account the dimension safety of operation and valuing each project of creation. Of this fact, in addition to the factors related to the optimization of resources, the use of materials and the minimization of releases, it is important to be attentive to the parameters of the safety of operation in the design phase and more specifically to the maintainability of a system repaired. In effect, for its successful integration, and in order to assist teams of design in meeting of creativity or small businesses in the development of their product, we propose a methodological approach based on TRIZ that will solve the problem of the integration of the maintainability in preliminary design phase by generating new concepts of solution in a time reduces which constitutes a decision aid for designers in the case of innovative concepts of product, of space or process. In fact, to succeed its integration, and to assist creative teams in creative sessions or small businesses in the development of their product, we propose a methodological approach based on the TRIZ that will solve the problem of integrating maintainability into the preliminary design phase by generating new solution concepts in reduced time that provide decision support for designers in case of innovative concepts of product, space or process concepts

On Higher-Order Probabilistic Subrecursion

We study the expressive power of subrecursive probabilistic higher-order calculi. More specifically, we show that endowing a very expressive deterministic calculus like Godel's T with various forms of probabilistic choice operators may result in calculi which are not equivalent as for the class of distributions they give rise to, although they all guarantee almost-sure termination. Along the way, we introduce a probabilistic variation of the classic reducibility technique, and we prove that the simplest form of probabilistic choice leaves the expressive power of T essentially unaltered. The paper ends with some observations about the functional expressive power: expectedly, all the considered calculi capture the functions which T itself represents, at least when standard notions of observations are considered

Stephen Jones, In Search of the Folk Daoists of North China. 华北民间道士与法事

Dans cet ouvrage, Stephen Jones s'intéresse aux spécialistes rituels de la Chine du Nord, plus précisément dans trois régions : (1) au centre et au nord du Shanxi, (2) au sud du Shanxi, sud du Hebei, Shaanxi et Gansu et (3) dans la plaine centrale du Hebei. Et c'est ce découpage régional qui guidera l'organisation de l'ouvrage en trois parties, précédées d'un long chapitre introductif et suivi d'un plus court chapitre de conclusion, d'importantes annexes et d'un index conséquent et très préci..