Governance, rational choice and new public management (npm): a general view (and some critics)

This article aims to study the New Public Management (NPM), one of the main trends associated to neoliberalism. It studies governance to show its general, wider and abstract scope. It also focuses on the Rational Choice as an important theory about governance, a basis for NPM. And it observes the neoliberal foundations of NPM, showing critical aspects of its real practice. Methodology: hypothetical deductive method of research, with a qualitative and critical approach and bibliographic-documental research technique. As results of this research, we can conclude that: i) the ideological usage of NPM has been expressed in a culture of minimal state and government - but in practice, such culture, when embossing implemented reforms, seldom reverted the role of the state, destroyed social safety nets, and placed the tax burden on the working majority rather than on the wealthy elite; ii) advocates for NPM have Western-shaped minds, generally making erroneous assumptions about institutions and cultures, which may be present in Anglo-American countries, but not in other culturally different ones; iii) in practice, NPM reforms were imposed to low-income countries by donor institutions to adjust their states for good governance - but those reforms did not solve problems with inefficiency and corruption. This work is original and valuable because it shows that even when public policies highlight the importance of less state intervention, solid norms and institutions are always necessary, and because it helps demystifying discourses that simply put that less state/more market politics can be valuable everywhere

Model inspired by population genetics to study fragmentation of brittle plates

We use a model whose rules were inspired by population genetics, the random capability growth model, to describe the statistical details observed in experiments of fragmentation of brittle platelike objects, and in particular the existence of (i) composite scaling laws, (ii) small critical exponents \tau associated with the power-law fragment-size distribution, and (iii) the typical pattern of cracks. The proposed computer simulations do not require numerical solutions of the Newton's equations of motion, nor several additional assumptions normally used in discrete element models. The model is also able to predict some physical aspects which could be tested in new experiments of fragmentation of brittle systems.Comment: We have modified the text in order to make the description of the model more clear. One Figure (Figure 1) was introduced showing the steps of the dynamics of colonization. Twelve references were adde

A Note on the Shannon Entropy of Short Sequences

For source sequences of length L symbols we proposed to use a more realistic value to the usual benchmark of number of code letters by source letters. Our idea is based on a quantifier of information fluctuation of a source, F(U), which corresponds to the second central moment of the random variable that measures the information content of a source symbol. An alternative interpretation of typical sequences is additionally provided through this approach.Comment: 3 figure

Huygens synchronisation of three clocks equidistant from each other

In this paper we study the synchronisation of three identical oscillators, i.e., clocks, hanging from the same hard support. We consider the case where each clock interacts with the other two clocks. The synchronisation is attained through the exchange of small impacts between each pair of oscillators. The fundamental result of this article is that the final locked state is at phase difference of ((2{\pi})/3) from successive clocks (clockwise or counter-clockwise). Moreover, the locked states attract a set whose closure is the global set of initial conditions. The methodology of our analysis consists in the construction a model, which is a non-linear discrete dynamical system, i.e. a non-linear difference equation. The results are extendable to any set of three oscillators under mutual symmetric interaction, despite the particular models of the oscillators