Documents found
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116971.More information
Although Brazil is among the world's largest consumers of pesticides, their impacts on local populations have struggled to emerge as a public problem due to a political context that is particularly favourable to industrial agriculture. In this article, we investigate how the knowledge produced on the impact of pesticides contributes (or not) to the emergence of this public problem. We conduct a reflection based on a citizen science process we conducted in the region of Santarem, in the Brazilian Amazon, where soybean has been expanding significantly for the past 20 years. Since 2017, we have built an observatory in partnership with peasant unions to make visible the impact of pesticides used in soy crops on family farmers. Young farmers, trained to become "community researchers", have administered 544 questionnaires to family farmers to learn about their practices and assess the changes caused since the arrival of soy. We conduct an analysis at three levels: at the national level, we follow the emergence of pesticides as a public issue, its consolidation during the Labor government (2003-2016), and then its dismantling; at a local level, the survey reveals how the family farmers are impacted by soy pesticides and at the same time, not so aware of being "victims"; finally, at the territorial level, we question the weakening of the debate between science and politics, particularly within the Regional Forum for the fight against the impact of pesticides set up in Santarém.
Keywords: agriculture familiale, science citoyenne, organisation paysanne, pesticides, Brésil, Amazonie, observatoire, family farming, co-production, citizen science, peasant organizations, pesticides, Brazil, Amazonia, observatory, agricultura familiar, co-construção, ciência cidadã, organizações camponesas, agrotóxicos, Brasil, Amazonia, observatório
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116972.More information
First, in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), the study aimed at showing cultural contingencies of the sophistication of accounting information systems (AIS). Second, the study aimed at contributing to the debate on the potential endogeneity bias in the results of previous studies. A multiple regression analysis and a Hausman test were performed on 276 responses. The respondents are top managers of French, Syrian or Tunisian SME. The results show that Hofstede's cultural dimensions are significant antecedents of the sophistication of AIS. The Hausman test reveals the absence of endogeneity bias in the previous studies.
Keywords: complexité des systèmes d'information comptables, petites et moyennes entreprises, contingences culturelles, endogénéité, sophistication of accounting information systems, small and medium-sized enterprises, cultural contingency, endogeneity, complejidad de los sistemas de información contables, PYMES, contingencias culturales, endogeneidad
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116973.More information
Since 2014, the USA stands accused of engaging in espionage against Germany, a NATO partner and supposedly close ally. Many, though by no means all of these allegations became known because of the Snowden revelations. In Germany, this has led to a public backlash and has caused many to criticize the German government's feeble reaction. Against this backdrop, this article considers whether the alleged US conduct may have even gone beyond abusing Germany's trust by actually violating public international law. After summarizing the main accusations, the state of the debate on the legality of espionage in international law will be analysed. This will allow the conclusion that there is so far no convincing answer to the question of whether espionage violates public international law or not. This is due to the imprecise, contradictory and changing definitions of the term “espionage”, but also, more importantly, to the fact that there is no necessity for international law to deal with “espionage”. Rather, customary international law already provides clear guidance as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of most, if not all, activities commonly associated with espionage. A detailed legal analysis of the alleged US spying activities will confirm this proposition and reveal that US conduct, if proven, did indeed violate public international law in each case. The USA not being able to rely on any legal justification for its actions, Germany would consequently be well within its rights to adopt countermeasures.
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116974.More information
In this paper, the author reviews the literature on credit structural models. Contingent claim analysis offers an appealing theoretical framework allowing not only evaluating firm’s claims and default risk, but also financing and investment decisions, as well as determining the impact of policy changes on the firm value and decisions. First, we present the major structural models and their underlying assumptions, beginning with exogenous default models and the following development leading to endogenous default models as well as other models that accounts for bankruptcy procedures, capital structure decisions and strategic defaults among others. The second part of the paper covers the empirical works related to the structural credit models. These works could be classified into three major categories: the first group examines the ability of structural models to explain the credit spread, the second one evaluate their performance to forecast default occurrence, the last group uses the structural models to study the relationship between credit risk and stock returns.
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116976.More information
AbstractThe ecological thesis in urban sociology has long treated suicides as a symptom of urban pathology. Historians who have studied the problem in Paris in the nineteenth century have accepted that official statistics mirrored reality and have explained higher rates in the capital than elsewhere in France by the failure of immigrants, marginal groups and working classes to adapt to the urban milieu. The purpose of this article is to determine the validity of these conclusions. The method adopted to do so consists, first of all, in creating a reliable data base using three different sources: the Morgue registers, statistics published annually by the Ministry of Justice and compilations made from individual suicide dossiers in the 1850s. It consists, secondly, of an analysis of crude data and global rates, and a more detailed examination of the incidence of suicide by gender, civil status, age group and profession and across Parisian space. The argument that is presented denies the validity of the ecological thesis. It is argued that rates do not increase across the period and that immigrants, the marginal, the working class are not overrepresented among suicides. It is further argued that the methods used to end one's life were more passive than brutal and that suicides were less important among causes of death than they would be in the twentieth century when Parisian rates had become the lowest in France.
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116977.More information
AbstractA survey of the literature on the economics of natural resources. Extractive resources are classified as renewable or non-renewable, depending on whether they exhibit economically significant rates of regeneration. A unified model of optimal extraction over time is developed, drawing on a number of contributions to the literature. Special features are developed for the renewable and non-renewable cases, and extensions and applications are noted, as well as needs for further research. Policy issues are treated, chief among these being the extent to which the market can be trusted to generate the right rate of extraction. Finally the empirical evidence is reviewed on whether we are running out of extractive resources.
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116978.More information
The objective of this article is to offer critical reflective analysis of the notion of violence from the point of view of ethology and evolutionary psychology. The authors define violence as a value judgment of aggression in which aggression, operationally defined by any oriented (physical, gestural, verbal, etc.), non-playful behavior that may potentially cause harm to the physical or psychological integrity of another person, is deemed to be an abuse of power. Thus, they adopt a position contrary to that of researchers who consider parental neglect, play-fighting and war games among children to be violent. They also respond to the tendency to consider parental corporal punishment as necessarily violent. They then examine the adaptive biological functions of different types of aggression as well as several of the natural regulating mechanisms governing them. They consider the question of violence from two angles: is violence typical of the entire human species, and are men more violent than women? The authors then propose a model for family power relationships (marital, parent-child, child-child) which may provide a better understanding of family conflict and its possible influence on the development not only of child aggression towards peers but also of children's competitive skills for gaining access to environmental resources. Finally, they conclude that morality is arbitrary and it is therefore important not to attempt to use science to justify it.
Keywords: agression, compétition, éthologie, punition physique, psychologie évolutionniste, rapport de pouvoir, relation d'activation, violence conjugale, activation relationship, aggression, competition, ethology, evolutionary psychology, physical punishment, power relationship, conjugal violence
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116979.More information
The exercise of a remedy precludes a party who is entitled to demand the respect of his prerogative, and one that must meet its obligation. Therefore, the interests are opposed by nature as each party will work to emerge triumphant from the conflict. Thus, there is a significant risk of abuse which justifies punishment. A litigant should not be prejudiced by the exercise of a right. His interests are protected by the moderation of the implementation of the rights of other individuals. Furthermore, the notion of abuse should be framed such as not to prejudice the interests of the various parties. Indeed, the litigants may be deterred by the sanction in the case of an abusive legal process. It would thus violate the access to rights which is fundamental to the achievement of individual rights. The consecration of loyalty would prevent such abuses.
Keywords: Abus, caractérisation, intérêts, action, voie de droit, exécution, Abuse, criteria, interest, action, remedy, execution
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116980.More information
This study focuses on the analysis of the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation, temperature, and discharge indices in the wadi Mina watershed (6 048 km2) in the Algerian northwest during the period of 1979-2013.The application of the non-parametric test of Kruskal-Wallis on rainfall indices has revealed that the total annual rainfall and the maximum number of consecutive rainy days show a large spatial variability. The number of days with high discharge decreases from the north to the south of the basin. As for the Mann-Kendall test, it revealed a decreasing trend in total annual rainfall. On the other hand, the maximal and minimal temperatures significantly increased with time. It was the same for the sequences of consecutive dry days, rainfall intensities and extremely rainy days. Also, the frequency of days with high discharge has decreased, while that with low discharge has increased in the three wadis Mina, Haddad and El Abd. Finally, the decrease in rainfall and the increase in temperature have generated a decline in water resources.
Keywords: température, pluies, débits, oued Mina, Algérie, Kruskal-Wallis, tendance, Mann-Kendall, temperature, rainfall, discharge, wadi Mina, Algeria, Kruskal-Wallis, trend, Mann-Kendall