5,871 research outputs found

    Angela carter’s heroes and villains: a dystopian romance

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    The present paper modestly attempts to study Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains (1969) as a dystopian romance in apocalyptic mode .It is an attempt to present how Angela Carter critically examines Rousseau’s Utopia of Noble Savage in Heroes and Villains. Carter juxtaposed Rousseau’s concept of ‘Noble Savage’ with the Barbarian Jewel, who does not represent natural ‘goodness of man’ and ‘perfectibility’ which are the merits attributed by Rousseau to his noble savage. Carter debunks the romantic idea of a ‘Noble Savage’ as well as an idyllic picture of the countryside, outside the walls of civilization. Carter scrutinizes Rousseau’s utopian idea of Noble Savage and also shows how the western Enlightenment concept of Binarism to establish identity of the privileged group is misleading as well as responsible for mistrust and harmful conflict between communities. Angela Carter combines dystopia with subversion of the genre of romance in Heroes and Villains. It encodes ‘female values’ of love and relatedness as well as ‘male aggressiveness’ and competition. The paper concludes that Angela Carter examines Rousseau’s utopian notion of Noble Savage as well as his notion of the ideal womanhood in Heroes and Villains. She has created a kind of laboratory world in which there are only three communities, the Professors, the Barbarians and the Savages. It is in this post-apocalyptic futurist world that she examines the utopian ideas of Rousseau. She subverts the romantic notion of love, courtship and manners that categorize popular romances

    Tariff andtax reform : do World Bank recommendations integrate revenue and protection objectives?

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    Tariff reform aimed at reducing domestic protection and the bias against exports holds the threat of widening the fiscal deficit by causing tariff revenue to decline. Because the success of an adjustment program depends critically on the correction of fiscal imbalances to achieve stabilization, tariff reforms must be coordinated with tax policy recommendations to develop alternative revenue sources. Conversely, the tariff reforms must eliminate the protective elements of domestic tax structures if they are to truly achieve their protection objectives. Rajaram reviews the extent to which the Bank's analysis and tariff recommendations in twelve countries (Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Malawi, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, Zaire, and Zambia) reflected such an integrated framework. He focuses on (1) the revenue impact of tariff reform, (2) the effect of domestic indirect taxes on protection, and (3) the structure of protection. The review is admittedly selective and the attempt is to capture the reasoning behind"typical"Bank recommendations. Rajaram finds that the quality of analysis underlying Bank recommendations in this regard is highly uneven. The following broad conclusions are indicated: (1) revenue concerns are often not adequately addressed in the design of tariff proposals, (2) the protective effect of domestic indirect taxes is often not recognized and thus not incorporated into the reform of the structure of protection, and (3) although there is little consensus on a desirable tariff structure, in a few cases the Bank has recommended a uniform nominal tariff. This could be seen as the logical culmination of attempts to narrow the range of tariffs.Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Export Competitiveness

    Teaching Econometrics Using Formative Assessment

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    This article studies the effectiveness of formative assessment techniques for an econometrics course. A large scale project with extensive formative assessment was included in the course, incorporating both summative and formative assessment. The specific assignment is for students to learn all steps to turn raw data obtained from the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) using the statistical software SPSS into a viable thesis that is worthy of undergraduate conference presentations and publications. Learning gains from implementation of this project using extensive formative assessment are measured by changes in student course grades.undergraduate economics education, teaching of economics

    Tools and technologies for expert systems: A human factors perspective

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    It is widely recognized that technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI), especially expert systems, can make significant contributions to the productivity and effectiveness of operations of information and knowledge intensive organizations such as NASA. At the same time, these being relatively new technologies, there is the problem of transfering technology to key personnel of such organizations. The problems of examining the potential of expert systems and of technology transfer is addressed in the context of human factors applications. One of the topics of interest was the investigation of the potential use of expert system building tools, particularly NEXPERT as a technology transfer medium. Two basic conclusions were reached in this regard. First, NEXPERT is an excellent tool for rapid prototyping of experimental expert systems, but not ideal as a delivery vehicle. Therefore, it is not a substitute for general purpose system implementation languages such a LISP or C. This assertion probably holds for nearly all such tools on the market today. Second, an effective technology transfer mechanism is to formulate and implement expert systems for problems which members of the organization in question can relate to. For this purpose, the LIghting EnGineering Expert (LIEGE) was implemented using NEXPERT as the tool for technology transfer and to illustrate the value of expert systems to the activities of the Man-System Division
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