Valve actuator Patent

Actuator using compressed gas as driving force to control valve handling large liquid flow

The Macroeconomics Shocks and the Brazilian Agricultural Price Evolution – A VAR Analysis Approach

The findings presented in this paper come from our study of the effects of Brazilian macroeconomic policy on the Brazilian Farm [product] Price Index using an adapted version of Frankel’s (1986 & 2006) theoretical model. The study examined the connection between Brazilian farm prices and external variables (worldwide importation of agribusiness products, international commodity prices, and foreign real interest rates) and between Brazilian farm prices and domestic variables (GDP, the real exchange rate, and local interest rates).

The MAGEEQ project: identifying contesting meanings of «gender equality»

In this article I engage with MAGEEQ methodology and theoretical assumptions to raise questions around the following themes: intentionality in political practice, meanings of discourse, and understandings of political subjectivity. I make the case that these topics need to be addressed in order to provide insights into the reasons social change is so difficult to achieve. Specifically, I suggest that feminists adopt a practice of «reflexive framing», examining how they represent social «problems», and broaden feminist constituencies through coalition to reduce the possibility of representing «problems» in ways that exclude or harm «others».In this article I engage with MAGEEQ methodology and theoretical assumptions to raise questions around the following themes: intentionality in political practice, meanings of discourse, and understandings of political subjectivity. I make the case that these topics need to be addressed in order to provide insights into the reasons social change is so difficult to achieve. Specifically, I suggest that feminists adopt a practice of «reflexive framing», examining how they represent social «problems», and broaden feminist constituencies through coalition to reduce the possibility of representing «problems» in ways that exclude or harm «others»

Problem-Solving as a Governing Knowledge: "Skills"-Testing in PISA and PIAAC

This article scrutinizes critically a pervasive knowledge shaping contemporary sociopolitical relations and spaces - "problem-solving knowledge". It develops the argument that, as a governing knowledge, "problem-solving" is increasing in intensity and scope, with a range of negative and potentially dangerous effects. As a case study, the article examines how problem-solving knowledge operates in the OECD "skills" assessment programs PISA and PIAAC, with a particularly worrying connection between so-called "cognitive abilities" and labour market performance. It considers how this "turn to cognition", with its associated moralism, divides "citizens" into those who either can or who cannot solve "problems", producing "more productive" and "less productive" categories of people. More broadly, these programs illustrate how treating "problems" as self-evident referents is deeply depoliticizing, highlighting the importance of examining how governing takes place through problematization. Through tracing the emergence and functioning of "problem-solving" as a knowledge practice, the article encourages reflection on how problem-solving knowledge has come to be taken-for-granted as "truth" and on how it operates to limit political debate and to regulate political subjects

Poststructuralism, Discourse and Problematization: Implications for gender mainstreaming

Poststructuralism, Discource and Problematization: Implications for mainstreaming. This article introduces a methodology, called ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR approach), that facilitates a form of poststructural policy analysis, and applies it to gender analysis procedures in Ireland and the Netherlands. In this methodology policies are understood as discursive practices, imposing specific shapes (called problem representations) on the ‘problems’ they purport to ‘address’. A WPR approach to policy analysis involves identifying the underlying conceptual logics in these problem representations and evaluating them in terms of their implications or effects. It also alerts those involved in designing and implementing gender mainstreaming programs to their location within dominant conceptual frameworks and the subsequent need for a form of reflexive policy practice