Книги з теми "InPost (Firm)"

James Joyce and the Phenomenology of Film reappraises the lines of influence said to exist between Joyce’s writing and early cinema and provides an alternative to previous psychoanalytic readings of Joyce and film. Through a compelling combination of historical research and critical analysis, Cleo Hanaway-Oakley demonstrates that Joyce, early film-makers, and phenomenologists (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in particular) share a common enterprise: all are concerned with showing, rather than explaining, the ‘inherence of the self in the world’. Instead of portraying an objective, neutral world, bereft of human input, Joyce, the film-makers, and the phenomenologists present embodied, conscious engagement with the environment and others: they are interested in the world-as-it-is-lived and transcend the seemingly rigid binaries of seer/seen, subject/object, absorptive/theatrical, and personal/impersonal. This book re-evaluates the history of body- and spectator-focused film theories, placing Merleau-Ponty at the centre of the discussion, and considers the ways in which Joyce may have encountered such theories. In a wealth of close analyses, Joyce’s fiction is read alongside the work of early film-makers such as Charlie Chaplin, Georges Méliès, and Mitchell and Kenyon, and in relation to the philosophical dimensions of early cinematic devices such as the Mutoscope, the stereoscope, and the panorama. By putting Joyce’s literary work—Ulysses above all—into dialogue with both early cinema and phenomenology, this book elucidates and enlivens literature, film, and philosophy.

What befalls economies that descend into violence? This chapter suggests that the splintered trade networks described in Chapter 2 effectively forced firms in Liberia to localize many of their inputs and to internalize many of the functions that would otherwise be external—imitating the effects of import-substitution and state-led industrialization policies. Specifically, the war economy in Liberia mimicked import tariffs, localized the staffs of many companies, raised local content in products, and even spurred technical learning and knowledge accumulation. In calling attention to ways in which violence localized supply chains, this chapter suggests that the interplay between violent predation is itself a reaction to the structure of global value chains.

This chapter is a retrospective view of some of the key topics from the text. The concept of deliberate practice introduced earlier is extended to deliberate learning. Steps to assure deliberate learning, including setting high goals and making a plan to reach them, focusing on the fundamentals, sharing one’s work for input from colleagues, managing time and staying on task, and developing a firm work ethic, are outlined. Transforming the myth of talent into the habit of hard work is reviewed and encouraged. The reader-student is asked to carefully consider how he or she will build and project the desired identity and roles as a musician and a pedagogue in a suitable community of practice. Probing questions are asked about the reader-student’s growth process and advances in understanding many key concepts and processes that inform the work of becoming a musician-pedagogue.

Systems of producing, consuming, and distributing water, energy, and food involve trade-offs that are rarely explicitly considered by firms and policymakers. The idea of the water-energy-food “nexus” represents an attempt to formalize these trade-offs into decision-making processes. Multinational food and beverage firms operating in arid regions were early promoters of nexus approaches, followed by aid donors, consultancies, and international institutions seeking a new paradigm for resource management and development planning. The first generation of nexus research focused on quantitative input-output modeling to empirically demonstrate interdependencies and options for optimizing resource management. This chapter employs a different approach, analyzing institutional “problemsheds” that shape the implementation of nexus initiatives in arid regions of the United States, the Persian/Arabian Gulf, and China. Our analysis reveals how nexus approaches are conditioned by property rights regimes, economic growth strategies based on resource extraction, and the ability to externalize environmental costs to other regions and states.

This book explores the institutional conditions of the origin of innovation, arguing that prior to the emergence of competitive entrepreneurial firms and the onset of new industries is a little-understood but crucial phase of cooperation under uncertainty: the innovation commons. An innovation commons is a governance institution to incentivize cooperation in order to pool distributed information, knowledge, and other inputs into innovation to facilitate the entrepreneurial discovery of an economic opportunity. In other words, the true origin of innovation is not entrepreneurial action per se, but the creation of a common-pool resource from which entrepreneurs can discover opportunities. The true origin of innovation, and therefore of economic evolution, occurs one step further back, in the commons. Innovation has a cooperative institutional origin. When the economic value or worth of a new technological prospect is shrouded in uncertainty—which arises because information is distributed or is only experimental obtained—a commons can be an economically efficient governance institution. Specifically, a commons is efficient compared to the creation of alternative economic institutions that involve extensive contracting and networks, private property rights and price signals, or public goods (i.e., firms, markets, and governments). A commons will often be an efficient governance solution to the hard economic problem of opportunity discovery. This new framework for analysis of the origin of innovation draws on evolutionary theory of cooperation and institutional theory of the commons and carries important implications for our understanding of the origin of firms and industries, and for the design of innovation policy.

This chapter introduces the idea of governance and proceeds to a structured discussion of what corporate governance means and why it matters. The discussion is divided into three themes: the first deals with enterprise—long-run commitments that firms make in terms of investment and innovation; the second deals with complementary inputs, in particular labour and the commitment of employees; the final theme is politics, where the external effects of company actions are discussed in a context where governments increasingly withdraw from roles traditionally considered public responsibilities. These themes are used to illustrate some of the major debates in governance today, not just in terms of a distinction between shareholder and stakeholder approaches but within each of these as well. From this overall perspective we consider each of the individual chapters and comment on their distinctive ideas and how they relate to the overall themes.

We can divide the history of Brazilian state-owned enterprise (SOEs) into two periods. In the first (1930s to late 1970s), SOEs were a policy instrument in state-led industrialization. They produced manufactured goods, supplied cheap inputs to private manufacturing firms, and financed those companies with long-term, subsidized loans. In the second period (1980s to the early 2000s), Brazil privatized several of its main SOEs. Privatization was mainly seen as an answer to macroeconomic problems and did not result from a national ideological about-face; indeed, most Brazilians continued to trust the state to lead development. Thus, the fall of SOEs was relative. Large companies such as Petrobrás and Eletrobrás continue in state hands. Moreover, the Lula and Rousseff administrations created several SOEs and strengthened others. And the state developed new channels to influence private investment, through a network of equity participations in private companies, held by BNDES and SOE pension funds.

The neuroscience of spatial memory is one of the most promising areas for developing biomimetic solutions to complex engineering challenges. Grid cells are neurons recorded in the medial entorhinal cortex that fire when rats are in an array of locations in the environment falling on the vertices of tightly packed equilateral triangles. Grid cells suggest an exciting new approach for enhancing robot simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) in changing environments and could provide a common map for situational awareness between human and robotic teammates. Current models of grid cells are well suited to robotics, as they utilize input from self-motion and sensory flow similar to inertial sensors and visual odometry in robots. Computational models, supported by in vivo neural activity data, demonstrate how grid cell representations could provide a substrate for goal-directed behavior using hierarchical forward planning that finds novel shortcut trajectories in changing environments.

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) terrified audiences through its convincing depiction of shark attacks off the coast of the New England island Amity. A great white shark terrorizes bathers, but local politicians refuse to acknowledge the danger, fearing a drop in tourism. The protagonist, Chief Brody, faces the truth and unselfishly attempts to save his community from the danger. This chapter argues that the power of Jaws to engage and disturb audiences comes from its success in immersing viewers in a primal scenario of predation by a malevolent monster, the shark, which meets the input specifications of evolved anti-predatory mechanisms in the human mind. The monster film compounds the fear of predation with the anxiety of uncertainty and sympathetic fear for protagonists in peril. We never know when the shark will strike, but we are alerted ahead of characters through aesthetic means, such as the film’s soundtrack.

The over-the-top musicals of Bollywood may be the most familiar aspect of Indian popular culture, but there are many more, all explored in this fascinating volume. Pop Culture India! Media, Arts, and Lifestylefollows the rise of modern India's pop culture world, especially since the 1980s, when relaxed censorship and economic liberalization led to an explosion in movies, music, mass media, consumerism, spiritual practices, and more. It is a captivating introduction to a diverse nation whose appetite for entertainment has led to some surprising twists and turns in recent history. How did a popular Indian television series spark a change in government and the rise of Hindu nationalism? Are some Bollywood film companies laundering money for organized crime, or even al Qaeda? What accounts for the overwhelming popularity of that quaint vestige of colonialism, cricket? The answers, and many more intriguing insights, await the reader inPop Culture India!

The popular uprisings in 2011 that overthrew Arab dictators were also a rebuke to crony capitalism, targeted against both rulers and their allied businessmen who had monopolized profitable economic opportunities. While the Middle East has witnessed a growing nexus between business and politics in the wake of economic liberalization, little is known about the nature of business cronies, the sectors in which they operate, the mechanisms used to favor them, and the possible impact of such crony relations on the region’s development. Combining inputs from leading scholars in the field, this volume presents a wealth of empirical evidence on the form and function of crony capitalism in the Middle East. The volume is unique in both its empirical focus and comparative scale. Analysis in individual chapters is empirically grounded, based on fine-grained data on the business activities of politically connected actors—furnishing, for the first time, information on the presence, numerical strength, and activities of politically connected entrepreneurs. This volume also substantially enhances our understanding of the mechanisms used to privilege connected businesses, and their possible impact on undermining growth and job creation of firms in the Middle East. It offers a major advance on our prior knowledge of Middle Eastern political economy, and constitutes a distinct contribution to the global literature on crony capitalism and the politics of development. The book will be an essential resource for students, researchers, and policymakers alike.

This book offers a political economy explanation for the striking cross-national differences in strategies and performance among East Asia’s automotive industries. Some countries—China, South Korea, and Taiwan—have successfully pursued “intensive” growth strategies by increasing local value added based on domestic inputs and technological competencies. Malaysia has attempted but failed to pursue this path. In contrast, Thailand has become a champion of “extensive” growth, relying on foreign assemblers and their suppliers to achieve an impressive expansion of production, assembly, and exports. Latecomer Indonesia has followed Thailand with some success, whereas the Philippines has remained an automotive backwater. Through cross-case and within-case analyses of the seven countries, the book argues that variation is a function of the institutional and political contexts in which firms operate. Different strategies require different institutions and institutional capacities. Intensive development is especially institutionally demanding. Effective institutions emerge when political leaders face severe claims on resources (security threats and domestic pressures for welfare improvement) in the absence of easily accessible revenues to satisfy such needs. Brief comparisons with Brazil, Mexico, and other developing countries confirm the utility of the analytic framework. This explanation is superior to neoclassical accounts. It is consistent with but provides more insight than other prominent approaches to development: national innovation systems, global value chains, and developmental states. New challenges facing auto assemblers and suppliers, such as the transition to electric and autonomous vehicles, will call heavily upon the institutional capacities highlighted in this book.

Life’s Rewards: Linking Dopamine, Incentive Learning, Schizophrenia, and the Mind explains how increased brain dopamine produces reward-related incentive learning, the acquisition by neutral stimuli of increased ability to elicit approach and other responses. Dopamine decreases may produce inverse incentive learning, the loss by stimuli of the ability to elicit approach and other responses. Incentive learning is gradually lost when dopamine receptors are blocked. The brain has multiple memory systems defined as “declarative” and “non-declarative;” incentive learning produces one form of non-declarative memory. People with schizophrenia have hyperdopaminergia, possibly producing excessive incentive learning. Delusions may rely on declarative memory to interpret the world as it appears with excessive incentive learning. Parkinson’s disease, associated with dopamine loss, may involve a loss of incentive learning and increased inverse incentive learning. Drugs of abuse activate dopaminergic neurotransmission, leading to incentive learning about drug-associated stimuli. After withdrawal symptoms have been alleviated by detoxification treatment, drug-associated conditioned incentive stimuli will retain their ability to elicit responses until they are repeatedly experienced in the absence of primary drug rewards. Incentive learning may involve the action of dopamine at dendritic spines of striatal medium spiny neurons that have recently had glutamatergic input from assemblies of cortical neurons activated by environmental and proprioceptive stimuli. Glutamate initiates a wave of phosphorylation normally followed by a wave of phosphatase activity. If dopaminergic neurons fire, stimulation of D1 receptors prolongs the wave of phosphorylation, allowing glutamate synaptic strengthening. Activity in dopaminergic neurons in humans appears to affect mental experience.

The aim of the paper was to determine the influence of root systems of chosen tree species found in the Polish Flysch Carpathians on the increase of soil shear strength (root cohesion) in terms of slope stability. The paper's goal was achieved through comprehensive tests on root systems of eight relatively common in the Polish Flysch Carpathians tree species. The tests that were carried out included field work, laboratory work and analytical calculations. As part of the field work, the root area ratio (A IA) of the roots was determined using the method of profiling the walls of the trench at a distance of about 1.0 m from the tree trunk. The width of the. trenches was about 1.0 m, and their depth depended on the ground conditions and ranged from 0.6 to 1.0 m below the ground level. After preparing the walls of the trench, the profile was divided into vertical layers with a height of 0.1 m, within which root diameters were measured. Roots with diameters from 1 to 10 mm were taken into consideration in root area ratio calculations in accordance with the generally accepted methodology for this type of tests. These measurements were made in Biegnik (silver fir), Ropica Polska (silver birch, black locust) and Szymbark (silver birch, European beech, European hornbeam, silver fir, sycamore maple, Scots pine, European spruce) located near Gorlice (The Low Beskids) in areas with unplanned forest management. In case of each tested tree species the samples of roots were taken, transported to the laboratory and then saturated with water for at least one day. Before testing the samples were obtained from the water and stretched in a. tensile testing machine in order to determine their tensile strength and flexibility. In general, over 2200 root samples were tested. The results of tests on root area ratio of root systems and their tensile strength were used to determine the value of increase in shear strength of the soils, called root cohesion. To this purpose a classic Wu-Waldron calculation model was used as well as two types of bundle models, the so called static model (Fiber Bundle Model — FIRM, FBM2, FBM3) and the deformation model (Root Bundle Model— RBM1, RBM2, mRBM1) that differ in terms of the assumptions concerning the way the tensile force is distributed to the roots as well as the range of parameters taken into account during calculations. The stability analysis of 8 landslides in forest areas of Cicikowicleie and Wignickie Foothills was a form of verification of relevance of the obtained calculation results. The results of tests on root area ratio in the profile showed that, as expected, the number of roots in the soil profile and their ApIA values are very variable. It was shown that the values of the root area ratio of the tested tree species with a diameter 1-10 ram are a maximum of 0.8% close to the surface of the ground and they decrease along with the depth reaching the values at least one order of magnitude lower than close to the surface at the depth 0.5-1.0 m below the ground level. Average values of the root area ratio within the soil profile were from 0.05 to 0.13% adequately for Scots pine and European beech. The measured values of the root area ratio are relatively low in relation to the values of this parameter given in literature, which is probably connected with great cohesiveness of the soils and the fact that there were a lot of rock fragments in the soil, where the tests were carried out. Calculation results of the Gale-Grigal function indicate that a distribution of roots in the soil profile is similar for the tested species, apart from the silver fir from Bie§nik and European hornbeam. Considering the number of roots, their distribution in the soil profile and the root area ratio it appears that — considering slope stability — the root systems of European beech and black locust are the most optimal, which coincides with tests results given in literature. The results of tensile strength tests showed that the roots of the tested tree species have different tensile strength. The roots of European beech and European hornbeam had high tensile strength, whereas the roots of conifers and silver birch in deciduous trees — low. The analysis of test results also showed that the roots of the studied tree species are characterized by high variability of mechanical properties. The values Of shear strength increase are mainly related to the number and size (diameter) of the roots in the soil profile as well as their tensile strength and pullout resistance, although they can also result from the used calculation method (calculation model). The tests showed that the distribution of roots in the soil and their tensile strength are characterized by large variability, which allows the conclusion that using typical geotechnical calculations, which take into consideration the role of root systems is exposed to a high risk of overestimating their influence on the soil reinforcement. hence, while determining or assuming the increase in shear strength of soil reinforced with roots (root cohesion) for design calculations, a conservative (careful) approach that includes the most unfavourable values of this parameter should be used. Tests showed that the values of shear strength increase of the soil reinforced with roots calculated using Wu-Waldron model in extreme cases are three times higher than the values calculated using bundle models. In general, the most conservative calculation results of the shear strength increase were obtained using deformation bundle models: RBM2 (RBMw) or mRBM1. RBM2 model considers the variability of strength characteristics of soils described by Weibull survival function and in most cases gives the lowest values of the shear strength increase, which usually constitute 50% of the values of shear strength increase determined using classic Wu-Waldron model. Whereas the second model (mRBM1.) considers averaged values of roots strength parameters as well as the possibility that two main mechanism of destruction of a root bundle - rupture and pulling out - can occur at the same. time. The values of shear strength increase calculated using this model were the lowest in case of beech and hornbeam roots, which had high tensile strength. It indicates that in the surface part of the profile (down to 0.2 m below the ground level), primarily in case of deciduous trees, the main mechanism of failure of the root bundle will be pulling out. However, this model requires the knowledge of a much greater number of geometrical parameters of roots and geotechnical parameters of soil, and additionally it is very sensitive to input data. Therefore, it seems practical to use the RBM2 model to assess the influence of roots on the soil shear strength increase, and in order to obtain safe results of calculations in the surface part of the profile, the Weibull shape coefficient equal to 1.0 can be assumed. On the other hand, the Wu-Waldron model can be used for the initial assessment of the shear strength increase of soil reinforced with roots in the situation, where the deformation properties of the root system and its interaction with the soil are not considered, although the values of the shear strength increase calculated using this model should be corrected and reduced by half. Test results indicate that in terms of slope stability the root systems of beech and hornbeam have the most favourable properties - their maximum effect of soil reinforcement in the profile to the depth of 0.5 m does not usually exceed 30 kPa, and to the depth of 1 m - 20 kPa. The root systems of conifers have the least impact on the slope reinforcement, usually increasing the soil shear strength by less than 5 kPa. These values coincide to a large extent with the range of shear strength increase obtained from the direct shear test as well as results of stability analysis given in literature and carried out as part of this work. The analysis of the literature indicates that the methods of measuring tree's root systems as well as their interpretation are very different, which often limits the possibilities of comparing test results. This indicates the need to systematize this type of tests and for this purpose a root distribution model (RDM) can be used, which can be integrated with any deformation bundle model (RBM). A combination of these two calculation models allows the range of soil reinforcement around trees to be determined and this information might be used in practice, while planning bioengineering procedures in areas exposed to surface mass movements. The functionality of this solution can be increased by considering the dynamics of plant develop¬ment in the calculations. This, however, requires conducting this type of research in order to obtain more data.