In Praise of Rebellion: Constituent Power and Dissent in the American Revolution

In the context of the American Revolution, alongside the influential notion of constituent power advocated, for instance, by the Federalists, emerged an alternative and potent perspective about this concept. This perspective, which was particularly strong in revolutionary Pennsylvania, had at least two distinctive features. First, rather than limiting constituent power to a sort of ante-room of constitutional authority, this view conferred primacy to the constituent process over the institutional machinery. Second, instead of exclusively assigning the exercise of constituent power to a few specialists, this perspective invented ways for the multitude to exercise its power directly. This article examines this particular vision of constituent power. This investigation, as I argue, can both assist in demystifying some common assumptions entrenched in the concept of constituent power and provide insights for contemporary reflection on the limits of representative democracy

Continuidades e descontinuidades na Política de ajuste estrutural do Banco Mundial (1980-2014)

XX Encontro Nacional de Economia Política: desenvolvimento Latino-Americano, Integração e Inserção Internacional - UNILA, Foz do Iguaçu, 26 a 29 de maio de 2015O artigo analisa a agenda política do BM implementada entre 1980 e 2014, centrada no ajuste estrutural das economias nacionais em clave neoliberal, com ênfase para a América Latina. Argumenta-se que tal agenda se renovou ao longo do período, tornando-se cada vez mais politizada, abrangente e intrusiva nos Estados clientes. Evidencia-se a coerência entre a agenda política do BM e a distribuição setorial e regional da sua carteira de empréstimosBanco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES); Usina Hidrelétrica de Itaipu (ITAIPU); Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) e Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana (UNILA

A agenda educacional do Banco Mundial em tempos de ajuste e pandemia

O artigo discute a agenda educacional do Banco Mundial em perspectiva histórica, questionando se ela sofreu alguma mudança devido à eclosão da contaminação pelo novo coronavírus (Sars-cov2) em escala global, responsável pela pandemia da doença denominada Covid-19. Com base na documentação da própria instituição e tomando como referência o caso brasileiro, argumenta-se que não houve mudança no seu caráter neoliberal, vigente desde a década de 1980. Ao mesmo tempo em que o Banco apoia as medidas de urgência tomadas pelos governos dos países em desenvolvimento (clientes da instituição) para amenizar os impactos da pandemia – o que necessariamente leva ao aumento do gasto público –, a instituição continua a condicionar a liberação de recursos em troca da adoção de políticas neoliberais, além de manter a primazia normativa do ajuste fiscal como base da ação dos governos desses países no pós-pandemia. Inicialmente, o artigo apresenta e problematiza as diferentes atividades realizadas pelo Banco (concessão de empréstimos, aconselhamento, assistência técnica, advocacy em favor de determinadas pautas, articulação de iniciativas multilaterais e pesquisa econômica). A seguir, analisa a evolução histórica da agenda educacional da instituição, à luz do seu programa político mais geral. Por fim, discute a atuação do Banco na educação brasileira, com base em um exame da carteira de empréstimos e em documentos estratégicos da entidade para o país, que abrangem o período 2017-20, aos quais a sua agenda educacional está subordinada.This article discusses the educational agenda of the World Bank from a historical perspective, asking whether it has undergone any changes due to the outbreak of contamination on a global scale caused by the new coronavirus (Sars-cov2), responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the institution’s documentation and taking as a reference the Brazilian case, it is argued that no change has occurred in its neoliberal nature, in force since the 1980s. At the same time that the Bank supported the measures of urgency adopted by governments of developing countries (clients of the institution) to soften the impacts of the pandemic – which necessarily results in an increase in public expenditure –, the institution continues to condition the release of funds on the adoption of neoliberal policies, as well as maintaining the normative primacy of the fiscal adjustment as the basis of action for governments of these countries in the post-pandemic period. Initially, the article presents and problematizes the different activities carried out by the Bank (the granting of loans, advice, technical assistance, advocacy in favor of determined agenda, the linking of multilateral initiatives and economic research). Following this, it analyzes the historical evolution of the educational agenda of the institution, in light of its more general political program. Finally, it discusses the action of the Bank in Brazilian education, based on an examination of the organization’s loan portfolio and strategic documents for Brazil, covering the period 2017-20, to which its educational agenda was subordinated

Proton Profile Function at 52.8 GeV

We present the results of a novel model-independent fit to elastic proton-proton differential cross section data at $\sqrt s$ = 52.8 GeV. Taking into account the error propagation from the fit parameters, we determine the scattering amplitude in the impact parameter space (the proton profile function) and its statistical uncertainty region. We show that both the real and imaginary parts of the profile are consistent with two dynamical contributions, one from a central dense region, up to roughly 1 fm and another from a peripheral evanescent region from 1 to 3 fm.Comment: Published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

For Organizational Communication that Promotes the Sharing of Tacit Knowledge

Objectives - focusing the study's focus on sharing tacit knowledge in non-profit organizations (NPOs) in Portugal and taking as a case study the Portuguese volunteer firefighters (FBs), we listed as objectives ascertaining the main communicational barriers to tacit knowledge sharing and identify action strategies to be implemented by these organizations, with a view to promoting this communication. Design / methodology / approach - A literature review on the barriers to sharing tacit knowledge, namely in its communicational dimension, was followed by a qualitative study, carried out with 8 Portuguese volunteer fire brigades, which allowed an analysis of the prevalence of these barriers and the determination of the main measures to be implemented, with a view to combating them. Conclusions - It was possible to conclude which are the most prevalent communication barriers in these organizations and what measures to be implemented with a view to combating these barriers and promoting the sharing of tacit knowledge by increasing more effective communication. Research limitations - This research focuses exclusively on the sharing of tacit knowledge, not considering other forms of knowledge. As this is a case study, although with very heterogeneous organizations, it cannot be replicated for different realities. Originality / value - Studies in this area, aimed at the NPOs are scarce, as opposed to what happens in the private and public sectors. The case study option of organizations such as the Portuguese FBs, unique in their action and identity, accompanies the need, increasingly recognized by society, in enabling these organizations of competences for the best possible performance, in the face of the tragic events that have occurred in recent years in Portugal

On the Hill estimator: a comparison of methods

Extreme value theory (EVT) deals with the occurrence of extreme phenomena. The tail index is a very important parameter appearing in the estimation of the probability of rare events. Under a semiparametric framework, inference requires the choice of a number k of upper order statistics to be considered. This is the crux of the matter and there is no definite formula to do it, since a small k leads to high variance and large values of k tend to increase the bias. Several methodologies have emerged in literature, specially concerning the most popular Hill estimator (Hill, 1975). In this work we compare through simulation well-known procedures presented in Drees and Kaufmann (1998), Matthys and Beirlant (2000), Beirlant et al. (2002) and de Sousa and Michailidis (2004), with a heuristic scheme considered in Frahm et al. (2005) within the estimation of a different tail measure but with a similar context. We will see that the new method may be an interesting alternative.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT): CEMAT (UID/MULTI/04621/2013

Field dose radiation determination by active learning with gaussian process for autonomous robot guiding

This article proposes an approach for determination of radiation dose pro le in a radiation-susceptible environment, aiming to guide an autonomous robot in acting on those environments, reducing the human exposure to dangerous amount of dose. The approach consists of an active learning method based on information entropy reduction, using log-normally warped Gaussian Process (GP) as surrogate model, resulting in non-linear online regression with sequential measurements. Experiments with simulated radiation dose elds of varying complexity were made, and results showed that the approach was e ective in reconstruct the eld with high accuracy, through relatively few measurements. The technique was also shown some robustness in presence measurement noise, present in real measurements, by assuming Gaussian noise