Institution-Driven Comparative Advantage, Complex Goods and Organizational Choice

The theory of the rm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms' integration opportunities affect the way institutions determine international trade patterns. We find that vertical integration lessens the impact of a country's ability to enforce contracts on the comparative advantage of complex goods. We also find that countries with good financial institutions export disproportionately more in sectors that produce complex goods and that have a high propensity for vertical integration. In doing so we use a new outcome-based measure of vertical integration propensity and we employ several empirical strategies: cross section, panel and event study analysis. Our results confirm the role of institutions as source of comparative advantage and suggest that this depends not only on the technological characteristics of the goods produced but also on the way firms are able to organize the production process.International Trade; Comparative Advantage; Contract Enforcement; Financial Institutions; Vertical Integration

Institution-Driven Comparative Advantage, Complex Goods and Organizational Choice

The theory of the firm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms' integration opportunities affect the way institutions determine international trade patterns. We find that vertical integration lessens the impact of a country's ability to enforce contracts on the comparative advantage of complex goods. We also find that countries with good financial institutions export disproportionately more in sectors that produce complex goods and that have a high propensity for vertical integration. In doing so we use a new outcome-based measure of vertical integration propensity and we employ several empirical strategies: cross section, panel and event study analysis. Our results confirm the role of institutions as source of comparative advantage and suggest that this depends not only on the technological characteristics of the goods produced but also on the way firms are able to organize the production process.International Trade; Comparative Advantage; Contract Enforcement; Financial Institutions; Vertical Integration

PRECEPT:a framework for ethical digital forensics investigations

Purpose: Cyber-enabled crimes are on the increase, and law enforcement has had to expand many of their detecting activities into the digital domain. As such, the field of digital forensics has become far more sophisticated over the years and is now able to uncover even more evidence that can be used to support prosecution of cyber criminals in a court of law. Governments, too, have embraced the ability to track suspicious individuals in the online world. Forensics investigators are driven to gather data exhaustively, being under pressure to provide law enforcement with sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. Yet, there are concerns about the ethics and justice of untrammeled investigations on a number of levels. On an organizational level, unconstrained investigations could interfere with, and damage, the organization’s right to control the disclosure of their intellectual capital. On an individual level, those being investigated could easily have their legal privacy rights violated by forensics investigations. On a societal level, there might be a sense of injustice at the perceived inequality of current practice in this domain. This paper argues the need for a practical, ethically-grounded approach to digital forensic investigations, one that acknowledges and respects the privacy rights of individuals and the intellectual capital disclosure rights of organisations, as well as acknowledging the needs of law enforcement. We derive a set of ethical guidelines, then map these onto a forensics investigation framework. We subjected the framework to expert review in two stages, refining the framework after each stage. We conclude by proposing the refined ethically-grounded digital forensics investigation framework. Our treatise is primarily UK based, but the concepts presented here have international relevance and applicability.Design methodology: In this paper, the lens of justice theory is used to explore the tension that exists between the needs of digital forensic investigations into cybercrimes on the one hand, and, on the other, individuals’ rights to privacy and organizations’ rights to control intellectual capital disclosure.Findings: The investigation revealed a potential inequality between the practices of digital forensics investigators and the rights of other stakeholders. That being so, the need for a more ethically-informed approach to digital forensics investigations, as a remedy, is highlighted, and a framework proposed to provide this.Practical Implications: Our proposed ethically-informed framework for guiding digital forensics investigations suggest a way of re-establishing the equality of the stakeholders in this arena, and ensuring that the potential for a sense of injustice is reduced.Originality/value: Justice theory is used to highlight the difficulties in squaring the circle between the rights and expectations of all stakeholders in the digital forensics arena. The outcome is the forensics investigation guideline, PRECEpt: Privacy-Respecting EthiCal framEwork, which provides the basis for a re-aligning of the balance between the requirements and expectations of digital forensic investigators on the one hand, and individual and organizational expectations and rights, on the other

Reinterpreting the Genevan Psalter: an examination of Psalm 128 as set by Goudimel, Sweelinck and Schütz

The popularity of Psalm setting in the time of the Protestant Reformation is a topic that has seldom been explored in depth. By analyzing the Genevan Psalter, this thesis exposes the investigation of the inspiration veiled behind the masterpieces of Psalm 128 as set by three composers; Claude Goudimel, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, and Heinrich Schütz. This music of the late Renaissance or early Baroque has been affected by outside incentives such as religion, culture, nationality, and the nature of the Reformation itself. By exploring the history of Psalmody during the Reformation, the experiences that each of these composers faced during their lifetimes, and by comparing their 128th Psalm settings, it can be determined why the fashion of Psalm setting evolved during this era and whether or not the music has withstood the test of time

Social Reproduction Feminisms

Social Reproduction (SR) feminism is the name given to that set of conceptualizations from different strands of Marxist and socialist feminism trying to explain these processes of life-making, how such processes are part of capitalist accumulation and what this means for how we as individuals and as a society produce and maintain our lives and human capacities. SR feminism is thus a loose but nonetheless broadly coherent school of thought – one that identifies and develops the insight that the social labours involved in producing this and the next generation of workers plays an important role in the capitalist drive to produce and accumulate surplus value. The tradition picks up on, and aims to correct, the naturalization of the gendered division of labour seen in Marx’s critique of capitalism and in the socialist tradition more broadly. It does so by developing an insight at the heart of Capital Volume 1, where Marx identifies ‘labour power’, or our capacity to labour, as the ‘special commodity’ that the capitalist needs to set the system in motion and keep it running. Our labour power, Marx tells us, has the ‘peculiar property of being a source of value’ (Marx, 1977: 270) because with that labour power, we create commodities and value for capitalism. The appropriation of our surplus labour by capitalists is the source of their domi- nance. Without our labour power, then, the system would collapse. But Marx is frustratingly silent on the rest of the story. If labour power produces value, how is labour power itself produced? In this chapter we outline the trajectory of SR feminism, particularly as it unfolded in Europe and North America, by focusing upon the main theoretical contributions. By critically engaging with Marx’s critique of political economy, SR feminism extends his analysis to grapple with the ways in which the social reproduction of labour power ground processes of accumulation in relations of social oppression. This unfinished project has, as we show below, a pointed political message: the fight against capitalist exploitation must be, at one and the same time, a fight against social oppression

Karen Parsons, Sara Brown, William Eubanks, and JoAnn Ferguson in a Joint Junior Recital

This is the program for the joint junior recital of pianist Karen Parsons, pianist Sara Brown, tenor William Eubanks, and pianist JoAnn Ferguson. This recital took place on March 27, 1962, in the Mitchell Hall Auditorium

Buried AGNs in Advanced Mergers:Mid-infrared color selection as a dual AGN finder

A direct consequence of hierarchical galaxy formation is the existence of dual supermassive black holes (SMBHs), which may be preferentially triggered as active galactic nuclei (AGN) during galaxy mergers. Despite decades of searching, however, dual AGNs are extremely rare, and most have been discovered serendipitously. Using the all-sky WISE survey, we identified a population of over 100 morphologically identified interacting galaxies or mergers that display red mid-infrared colors often associated in extragalactic sources with powerful AGNs. The vast majority of these advanced mergers are optically classified as star-forming galaxies suggesting that they may represent an obscured population of AGNs that cannot be found through optical studies. In this work, we present Chandra/ACIS observations and near-infrared spectra with the Large Binocular Telescope of six advanced mergers with projected pair separations less than ~ 10 kpc. The combined X-ray, near-infrared, and mid-infrared properties of these mergers provide confirmation that four out of the six mergers host at least one AGN, with four of the mergers possibly hosting dual AGNs with projected separations less than ~10 kpc, despite showing no firm evidence for AGNs based on optical spectroscopic studies. Our results demonstrate that 1) optical studies miss a significant fraction of single and dual AGNs in advanced mergers, and 2) mid-infrared pre-selection is extremely effective in identifying dual AGN candidates in late-stage mergers. Our multi-wavelength observations suggest that the buried AGNs in these mergers are highly absorbed, with intrinsic column densities in excess of N_H >10^24cm^-2, consistent with hydrodynamic simulations.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication to Ap

Implicancias para la pesca y la conservación de la caracterización molecular y la trazabilidad de muestras de ceviche del Pacífico de Panamá

Genetic analysis of 111 samples from ceviche cocktails and fish fillets used for ceviche, obtained from fish markets and processing plants in the Pacific zone of Panama were conducted to determine species composition, trace origin (native, nonnative or imported frozen species) and CITES species status. A total of 21 species were detected (20 fishes and one invertebrate): Coryphaena hippurus (dolphin fish), Pangasianodon hypophthalmus (basa), Trachinotus falcatus (pompano), Cyclopsetta querna (toothed flounder), Atheresthes stomias (arrow-tooth flounder), Lobotes pacificus (Pacific tripletail), Bagre panamensis (Chihuil sea-catfish), B. bagre (Coco sea-catfish), Ariopsis seemanni (Tete sea-catfish), Aspistor luniscutis (yellow sea-catfish), Centropomus viridis (white snook), C. undecimalis (Union snook), Sphyrae naensis (Mexican barracuda), Oreochromis niloticus (Nile tilapia), O. mossambicus (Mozambique tilapia), Cynoscion praedatorius (Boccone weakfish), Protonibea diacanthus (blackspotted croaker), Gadus chalcogrammus (Alaska pollock), Sphyrna lewini (scalloped hammerhead shark), Makaira nigricans (blue marlin) and Dosidicus gigas (giant Humbolt squid). Native species found in ceviche samples were reduced in numbers compared with imported and cultivated ones. Thus, the most common detected fish species was basa, followed by the Nile tilapia and the dolphin fish. This is a positive result in terms of sustainability of local fisheries, since basa is imported as frozen fish meat from Asia. The same applies for Nile tilapia, a cultivated freshwater species not captured from local fisheries. For the dolphin fish, despite being common and exploited in Pacific waters, previous studies suggest its fishery is sustainable in Panama waters. In terms of conservation status, one species cataloged by IUCN as vulnerable (VU), the blue marlin (M. nigricans) and one as critically endangered (CR), the scalloped hammerhead shark (S. lewini) were detected. Sphyrae lewini is also catalog as CITES appendix II. The giant Humbolt squid (D. gigas), classified by IUCN as data deficient (DD), was the only invertebrate detected in samples obtained from a ceviche processing plant. Two sets of primers and dual labeled probes were designed for qPCR eDNA detection of the only CITES species, S. lewini. These represent the first qPCR markers for eDNA detection of S. lewini. Results from this project promote the sustainable use of fishery resources and might provide ceviche producers with a certificate from MarViva Foundation certifying that their ceviche is free of sharks or species threatened/protected by law, giving added value to their product. Molecular detection and molecular traceability are sensitive and species specific, what makes of this tool a reliable method to combat IUU (illegal, unreported and undocumented) fishing.Se realizaron análisis genéticos de 111 muestras de cócteles de ceviche y filetes de pescado utilizados para ceviche, obtenidas en lonjas y plantas de procesado de la zona Pacífica de Panamá para determinar la composición por especies, el origen y la trazabilidad de éstas (especies autóctonas, no autóctonas o importadas congeladas) y el estatus de especies CITES. Se detectó un total de 21 especies (20 peces y un invertebrado): Coryphaena hippurus (dorado), Pangasianodon hypophthalmus (basa), Trachinotus falcatus (pompano), Cyclopsetta querna (platija dentada), Atheresthes stomias (platija diente de flecha), Lobotes pacificus (berrugate del Pacífico), Bagre panamensis (bagre, chihuil), B. bagre (bagre doncella), Ariopsis seemanni (bagre tete), Aspistor luniscutis (bagre amarillo), Centropomus viridis (róbalo plateado), C. undecimalis (róbalo blanco), Sphyrae naensis (barracuda mexicana), Oreochromis niloticus (tilapia del Nilo), O. mossambicus (tilapia de Mozambique), Cynoscion praedatorius (corvina bocona), Protonibea diacanthus (corvina negra), Gadus chalcogrammus (abadejo de Alaska), Sphyrna lewini (tiburón martillo), Makaira nigricans (merlín azul) y Dosidicus gigas (calamar gigante de Humbolt). Las especies autóctonas encontradas en las muestras de ceviche eran menos numerosas que las importadas y cultivadas. Así, la especie de pescado detectada con más frecuencia fue el Basa, seguida de la tilapia del Nilo y el dorado. Se trata de un resultado positivo en términos de sostenibilidad de la pesca local, ya que el Basa se importa de Asia como carne de pescado congelada. Lo mismo ocurre con la tilapia del Nilo, una especie cultivada de agua dulce que no se captura en las pesquerías locales. En cuanto al dorado, a pesar de ser común y explotado en aguas del Pacífico, estudios previos sugieren que su pesca es sostenible en aguas panameñas. En cuanto al estado de conservación, se detectó una especie catalogada por la UICN como vulnerable (VU), el Merlín azul (M. nigricans) y otra en peligro crítico (CR), el tiburón martillo festoneado (S. lewini). Sphyrna lewini también está catalogado como CITES: apéndice II. El calamar gigante de Humbolt (D. gigas), clasificado por la UICN como de datos insuficientes (DD), fue el único invertebrado detectado en las muestras obtenidas en una planta procesadora de ceviche. Se diseñaron dos conjuntos de cebadores y sondas de doble etiquetado para la detección qPCReDNA de la única especie CITES, S. lewini. Estos representan los primeros marcadores qPCR para la detección eDNA de S. lewini. Los resultados de este proyecto promueven el uso sostenible de los recursos pesqueros y podrían proporcionar a los productores de ceviche un certificado de la Fundación MarViva de ceviche libre de tiburones o especies amenazadas/protegidas por la ley, que dan un valor añadido a su producto. La detección y trazabilidad molecular son sensibles y específicas para cada especie, lo que hace de esta herramienta un método fiable para combatir la pesca Ilegal, No declarada e Indocumentada (INDNR)

QuantifyMe: An Open-Source Automated Single-Case Experimental Design Platform

Smartphones and wearable sensors have enabled unprecedented data collection, with many products now providing feedback to users about recommended step counts or sleep durations. However, these recommendations do not provide personalized insights that have been shown to be best suited for a specific individual. A scientific way to find individualized recommendations and causal links is to conduct experi ments using single-case experimental design; however, properly designed single-case experiments are not easy to conduct on oneself. We designed, developed, and evaluated a novel platform, QuantifyMe, for novice self-experimenters to conduct proper-methodology single-case self-experiments in an automated and scientific manner using their smartphones. We provide software for the platform that we used (available for free on GitHub), which provides the methodological elements to run many kinds of customized studies. In this work, we evaluate its use with four different kinds of personalized investigations, examining how variables such as sleep duration and regularity, activity, and leisure time affect personal happiness, stress, productivity, and sleep efficiency. We conducted a six-week pilot study (N = 13) to evaluate QuantifyMe. We describe the lessons learned developing the platform and recommendations for its improvement, as well as its potential for enabling personalized insights to be scientifically evaluated in many individuals, reducing the high administrative cost for advancing human health and wellbeing. Keywords: single-case experimental design; mobile health; wearable sensors; self-experiment; self-trackin