The Pragmatics of Arabic Religious Posts on Facebook: A Relevance-Theoretic Account

Despite growing interest in the impact of computer-mediated communication on our lives, linguistic studies on such communication conducted in the Arabic language are scarce. Grounded in Relevance Theory, this paper seeks to fill this void by analysing the linguistic structure of Arabic religious posts on Facebook. First, I discuss communication on Facebook, treating it as a relevance-seeking process of writing or sharing posts, with the functions of ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ seen as cues for communicating propositional attitude. Second, I analyse a corpus of around 80 posts, revealing an interesting use of imperatives, interrogatives and conditionals which manipulate the interpretation of such posts between descriptive and interpretive readings. I also argue that a rigorous system of incentives is employed in such posts in order to boost their relevance. Positive, negative and challenging incentives link the textual to the visual message in an attempt to raise more cognitive effects for the readers

Does Trade Facilitation Matter in Bilateral Trade ?

This paper estimates an augmented gravity model incorporating different aspects of Trade Facilitation in develop and developing countries. Trade Facilitation is defined as measures that aim at making international trade easier by eliminating administrative delays, simplifying commercial procedures, increasing transparency, security and the place of new technologies in trade. This paper provides new theoretical and empirical enhancements. On the one hand, the model is based on theoretical foundations related to monopolistic competition and border effects. The orginality of this paper is that Trade Facilitation facets are included in the model. On the other hand, the empirical achievement of the paper is that it uses different databases allowing us to take into account many features of Trade Facilitation. I use several databases coming from different sources : Doing business (World Bank) and Institutional Profiles (CEPII). My main findings show that transaction time for imports and number of documents for exports have a negative impact on trade. Our sample is split into sub-samples in order to take into account the impact of development level. It turns out that Trade Facilitation aspects have not the same impact on developed and developing countries. Finally, we conclude that some perishable (food and beverages), seasonal (wearing apparels) and high-value added products are more sensitive to import time than other products. Hard industries are rather sensitive to export documents.Trade facilitation, gravity models, border effects.

The Unintended Consequences of European Power

On October 25th 2007 the Wall Street Journal published a blistering attack onEurope entitled Regulatory Imperialism. The editorial took issue with Europe’sintent to force its norms on the rest of the world by taking advantage of the dynamismof its internal market both affluent and attractive and in addition highly organized.Examples cited included the Microsoft Affair, the ban on the importation of chlorinerinsedpoultry, the Reach legislation on chemical products, as well as the plan to taxairline companies as part of the battle against climate change.*Why does Europe favour norms as its mode of influence?*Why has its normative influence become global?*What are the main areas for externalizing European norms? These are three questions that this paper will attempt to answer.power analysis; Europeanization; Europeanization

Towards an explicit modeling of trade facilitation in CGE models: evidence from Egypt

This paper develops a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model incorporating trade facilitation aspects. This paper’s contributions are twofold: theoretical and empirical. First, this paper attempts to model trade facilitation explicitly in a dynamic CGE model applied. On the empirical side, I estimate, not assume, the tariff equivalent of red tape and related procedures at sectoral level. I use the ad valorem tariff equivalents of time to import and to export that have been estimated in a companion paper and I take into account the cost of such a process. To do so, I modify the Exter model that is calibrated on the Egyptian social accounting matrix of 2000/2001. My main findings show that, when trade facilitation is modeled precisely, i.e. by taking into account its cost as well as the tariff equivalents of its aspects, the impact of such a process is reduced. Meanwhile, its impact remains higher than trade liberalization. Moreover, some sectors witness a significant expansion more than others, especially processed food, garments and high value added products.CGE; Trade facilitation; Egypt

Social Norms and Individual Savings in the Context of Informal Insurance

This paper develops a theory of informal insurance in the presence of an intertemporal technology. It is shown that when an insurance agreement suffers from enforcement problems, constraints on individual savings behaviour can enable the group to sustain greater cooperation. This result provides a motivation for a variety of social norms observed in traditional societies which discourage 'excessive' accumulation of wealth by individuals. The paper also shows that social norms that discourage savings are more likely to benefit poorer communities and thus, paradoxically, cause them to fall further behind even as it serves a useful purpose.

The forgotten majority of computing have-nots

People have falsely regarded the computing working environment as dedicated to the confines of a building with availability of electricity, high-speed info-structure, and the latest computer technology. In reality, there are many computing have-nots in the real world living in challenged computing environments. Current computing curricula are designed to prepare graduates for more urban and best-case business scenarios where learning takes place within campus boundaries. To prepare computing graduates better to survive in harsh environments and to contribute meaningfully to society, their learning should also take place out of the classroom and into challenged computing environments where active and experiential learning could take place. Confronted with the harsh realities of life, students learn quickly to adapt themselves for survival and for their future career. Many generic skills can be reinforced here to make computing graduates more versatile, entrepreneurial, effective, and ever ready to face the real world

The Effect of wake Turbulence Intensity on Transition in a Compressor Cascade

Direct numerical simulations of separating flow along a section at midspan of a low-pressure V103 compressor cascade with periodically incoming wakes were performed. By varying the strength of the wake, its influence on both boundary layer separation and bypass transition were examined. Due to the presence of small-scale three-dimensional fluctuations in the wakes, the flow along the pressure surface undergoes bypass transition. Only in the weak-wake case, the boundary layer reaches a nearly-separated state between impinging wakes. In all simulations, the flow along the suction surface was found to separate. In the simulation with the strong wakes, separation is intermittently suppressed as the periodically passing wakes managed to trigger turbulent spots upstream of the location of separation. As these turbulent spots convect downstream, they locally suppress separation. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht