Certain Attributes (certain + attribute)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%

Selected Abstracts

Policy Wars for Peace: Network Model of NGO Behavior,

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2009
Anna Ohanyan
The challenge of orchestrating coordination and cooperation among the many international organizations active in international development has attracted much interest from academics and practitioners alike. This study addresses a particular piece of the larger puzzle: as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their donors, each usually with much different policy orientations, coalesce within interorganizational networks, what determines whose policy preferences are pursued, implemented, and delivered on the ground? Within the network-based model of NGO behavior introduced in this article, certain attributes and the internal institutional composition of NGO,donor policy networks are significant determinants in shaping opportunities for NGOs and in giving both NGOs and donors leverage over the policy process. The model focuses specifically on demonstrating the effects of a network on NGO autonomy,that is, an NGO's ability to advance its own policy preferences regardless of their congruency with those of its donors. The network typology presented in this study identifies the comparative advantages of distinct network types in which the NGO is most empowered as an autonomous policy actor and is best equipped to withstand parochial donor preferences. Using network analysis and the proposed network-based model, this research takes the form of a comparative study of four NGO,donor policy networks from the postconflict microfinance sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The study also charts new research paths toward developing network-based approaches to the study of international institutions. [source]

Buyers' perceptions of importance and willingness-to-pay for certain attributes of source and production verified bred heifers

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 5 2010
Joe L. Parcell
Cattle; Distribution-free estimation; Willingness-to-pay Abstract This research reports buyers' perceptions of and willingness-to-pay for replacement heifers produced through a rigorous, third-party verified production protocol. Survey respondents attended and registered to purchase heifers at sanctioned Missouri Show-Me-Select Replacement Heifer Program® sales between 1997 and 2002. Responses indicate that pen uniformity, artificially inseminated to calving ease bull, synchronized calving, and heifer size are perceived as important, and their willingness-to-pay for these characteristics is economically significant. Though prior research suggests willingness-to-pay estimates particularly for inexperienced consumers may be biased, we find little difference between inexperienced and experienced buyers and also little difference from hedonic estimates of heifer characteristics' value. [source]

Artificial boundary conditions for viscoelastic flows

MATHEMATICAL METHODS IN THE APPLIED SCIENCES, Issue 8 2008
Sergueï A. Nazarov
Abstract The steady three-dimensional exterior flow of a viscoelastic non-Newtonian fluid is approximated by reducing the corresponding nonlinear elliptic,hyperbolic system to a bounded domain. On the truncation surface with a large radius R, nonlinear, local second-order artificial boundary conditions are constructed and a new concept of an artificial transport equation is introduced. Although the asymptotic structure of solutions at infinity is known, certain attributes cannot be found explicitly so that the artificial boundary conditions must be constructed with incomplete information on asymptotics. To show the existence of a solution to the approximation problem and to estimate the asymptotic precision, a general abstract scheme, adapted to the analysis of coupled systems of elliptic,hyperbolic type, is proposed. The error estimates, obtained in weighted Sobolev norms with arbitrarily large smoothness indices, prove an approximation of order O(R,2+,), with any ,>0. Our approach, in contrast to other papers on artificial boundary conditions, does not use the standard assumptions on compactly supported right-hand side f, leads, in particular, to pointwise estimates and provides error bounds with constants independent of both R and f. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Capitals, assets, and resources: some critical issues1

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2005
Mike Savage
Abstract This paper explores the potential of Bourdieu's approach to capital as a way of understanding class dynamics in contemporary capitalism. Recent rethinking of class analysis has sought to move beyond what Rosemary Crompton (1998) calls the ,employment aggregate approach', one which involves categorizing people into class groups according to whether they have certain attributes (e.g. occupations). Instead, recent contributions by Pierre Bourdieu, Erik Wright, Aage Sorensen, and Charles Tilly have concentrated on understanding the mechanisms that produce class inequalities. Concepts such as assets, capitals and resources (CARs) are often used to explain how class inequalities are produced, but there remain ambiguities and differences in how such terms are understood. This paper identifies problems faced both by game theoretical Marxism and by the rational choice approach of Goldthorpe in developing an adequate approach to CARs. It then turns to critically consider how elements of Bourdieu's approach, where his concept of capital is related to those of habitus and field, might overcome these weaknesses. Our rendering of his arguments leads us to conclude that our understanding of CARs might be enriched by considering how capital is distinctive not in terms of distinct relations of exploitation, but through its potential to accumulate and to be converted to other resources. This focus, we suggest, sidesteps otherwise intractable problems in CAR based approaches. [source]