The two-way relationship between entrepreneurship and economic performance

This paper examines the two-way relationship between entrepreneurship and economic performance, using a harmonized data set covering 21 OECD countries in the period 1981-2006. While the relation between entrepreneurship and economic performance has been investigated extensively, most papers in this research field suffer from one or more methodological flaws, so that the important question: "does entrepreneurship cause economic performance?" can still not be answered up till the present day. In this paper we investigate the relationship in a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) framework. We find evidence for the existence of a long-run equilibrium relation between the level of business ownership and per capita income. We also find evidence that increases in business ownership actually cause economic growth. However, our impulse response analysis reveals that the effect depends on the number of business owners already present in the economy, i.e. we find decreasing marginal returns to entrepreneurship. We also find that the effect depends on the size of the shock (i.e. the increase in entrepreneurship), where too big shocks may lead to negative effects on GDP due to 'overshooting'. �

Intermolecular electron transfer in two-iron superoxide reductase: a putative role for the desulforedoxin center as an electron donor to the iron active site.

International audienceSuperoxide reductase (SOR) is a superoxide detoxification system present in some microorganisms. Its active site consists of an unusual mononuclear iron center with an FeN4S1 coordination which catalyzes the one-electron reduction of superoxide to form hydrogen peroxide. Different classes of SORs have been described depending on the presence of an additional rubredoxin-like, desulforedoxin iron center, whose function has remained unknown until now. In this work, we investigated the mechanism of the reduction of the SOR iron active site using the NADPH:flavodoxin oxidoreductase from Escherichia coli, which was previously shown to efficiently transfer electrons to the Desulfoarculus baarsii SOR. When present, the additional rubredoxin-like iron center could function as an electronic relay between cellular reductases and the iron active site for superoxide reduction. This electron transfer was mainly intermolecular, between the rubredoxin-like iron center of one SOR and the iron active site of another SOR. These data provide the first experimental evidence for a possible role of the rubredoxin-like iron center in the superoxide detoxifying activity of SOR

Métiers de la relation : nouvelles logiques et nouvelles épreuves du travail

Les métiers relationnels, définis comme une activité transdisciplinaire d’aide ou d’accompagnement de personnes en situation de vulnérabilité, subissent de profondes mutations politiques et organisationnelles, tout autant qu’identitaires et de sens, dans les milieux sociosanitaires et de l’éducation. Cette reconfiguration structurelle et symbolique de l’aide à autrui impulse à la fois de nouvelles conduites dans leur pratique et des épreuves inédites du travail. Même si plusieurs recherches ont souligné le rôle de premier plan que jouent ces métiers dans la régulation et le rétablissement des subjectivités, peu ont examiné les logiques du métier. Aussi une attention particulière est-elle accordée dans cet ouvrage à la question du sens qu’ils prêtent eux-mêmes à leur activité, dans le contexte contemporain où le travail ne peut plus faire fi de la subjectivité de ses acteurs. De ce point de vue, la grammaire pratique et discursive des métiers relationnels met en relief l’émergence et la cristallisation de nouvelles " règles sociales " du travail avec autrui

institutional innovation from the bottom up?

A sustainable economy fulfills societal needs in a fundamentally different way to the current economic system. Improvements to the efficiency of existing technologies or practices appear insufficient for achieving sustainable development within the planetary boundaries. Disruptive, systemic and transformational changes appear necessary in order to replace existing technologies and practices to establish a sustainable economy. Such innovations often start out in niches; however, the scaling up and the ultimate replacement of current socio-technical systems requires governance to allow for the coordination of actors, the reorganization of socio-technical systems and the mobilization and allocation of resources. As governmental institutions are part of the current (non-sustainable) systems and thereby fail to provide coherent, integrated and transformative governance, we explore whether institutional innovation from non-state actors can step in to provide governance of transformation processes. Based on explorative qualitative case studies of networks in the food sector, city planning and reporting tools, we analyze the potential of bottom-up institutional innovations to coordinate actors in transformation processes

« Ça se sépare-tu ça, la femme pis la mère ? » : Services reçus par des femmes vivant dans un contexte de concomitance de violence conjugale et de mauvais traitements envers les enfants

Le présent article fait état des résultats d’une recherche qui visait à documenter les expériences de la maternité des femmes vivant dans un contexte de concomitance de violence conjugale et de mauvais traitements envers les enfants. Les résultats présentent le point de vue de ces femmes, notamment en ce qui a trait à l’intervention des services de santé et des services sociaux avec lesquels elles ont été en contact.This article draws upon a study that investigates women’s experiences of mothering in families presenting a co-occurrence of domestic violence and child abuse. The findings reported in this article examine the women’s perspectives on health and social services’ responses

The human HIP gene, overexpressed in primary liver cancer encodes for a C-type carbohydrate binding protein with lactose binding activity

AbstractHIP was originally identified as a gene expressed in primary liver cancers, and in normal tissues such as pancreas and small intestine. Based on gene data base homologies, the HIP protein should consist of a signal peptide linked to a single carbohydrate recognition domain. To test this hypothesis HIP and the putative carbohydrate recognition domain encoded by the last 138 C-terminal amino acids, were expressed as glutathione-S -transferase proteins (GST-HIP and GST-HIP-142, respectively). Both recombinant proteins were purified by a single affinity purification step from bacterial lysates and their ability to bind saccharides coupled to trisacryl GF 2000M were tested. Our results show that HIP and HIP-142 proteins bind to lactose, moreover the binding requires divalent cations. Thus the HIP protein is a lactose-binding lectin with the characteristics of a C-type carbohydrate recognition domain of 138 amino acids in the C-terminal region