Suchergebnisse

RESUMEN El artículo propone que para esclarecer el debate europeo en torno a la gestión de los servicios públicos, se haga una revisión de los cambios que están ocurriendo en Francia a la luz de las experiencias latinoamericanas. El sostiene que el debate político se presenta como una lucha entre dos entes metafísicos: el "modelo francés" y el "modelo ingles" y que trasladar un modelo de un país a otro, olvida que nunca se trata de una mera imitación, siempre se produce un mestizaje. Propone un pasaje por América Latina, donde numerosos países están transformando profundamente la organización de sus servicios, inspirándose muchas veces en modelos europeos. Este pasaje permitirá observar en vivo los procesos de mestizaje, lo que ayudara a entender lo que está pasando en Europa. Estudia el caso del servicio de agua. ABSTRACT This article proposes that in order to clarify the European debate regarding the management of public services, changes occuring in France should be examined from the point of viewof Latin American experiences. The author states that the political debate appears as a struggle between two metaphysic entities- the "Frencho model" and the "English model", and any transference of a model from a country to another overlooks the fact that it never is a mere imitation, since a cross breeding always occurs. He suggests going along Latin A merica, where many countries are deeply transforming the way they organize public services, inspired in European models. This ride will allow to really observe the cross breeding processes, and will be helpful to understand whats is happening in Europe. The article deals specifically with the wáter supply service.

The paper focuses on housing typologies as one of the main reasons for the current obsolescence of the so called "polígonos residenciales". These housing estates were relatively homogeneous, due to the fact that they were the result of processes determined and controlled by the government through laws, norms and regulations, mostly during the decade of the 1950s. The author contends that the architectural typologies derived from these prescriptions contribute to their obsolescence because nowadays they present a mismatch with contemporary social and cultural reality. The article is structured around two points. The first one reflects upon the evolution of the thinking and the process of experimentation that preceded the mass construction of the "polígonos residenciales" in the 1960s and 1970s. The second one identifies and discusses five main mismatches between their housing typologies and contemporary needs. ; El artículo se centra en una de las causas de la actual obsolescencia de los denominados «polígonos residenciales»: la que tiene que ver con las tipologías de vivienda. Al tratarse de un proceso controlado y dirigido por el estado, éstas son relativamente unitarias, obedeciendo a decretos, reglamentos y regulaciones dictados por el gobierno sobre todo en la década de 1950. El autor detecta en las opciones tipológicas de estas normativas graves desencuentros con la realidad sociocultural contemporánea, avanzando la hipótesis de que aquéllas son uno de los motores del citado estado de obsolescencia. El artículo se estructura en dos apartados: el primero repasa el proceso de reflexión y experimentación que antecedió a la producción en masa de los polígonos residenciales en las décadas de 1960 y 1970; el segundo delinea los principales desajustes existentes entre sus tipologías arquitectónicas y las necesidades contemporáneas.

В статье рассматривается роман «Шерри» (1884) Э. Гонкура, который отражает динамику жанра романа и тенденции литературного процесса конца XIX века. В романе отмечено проявление художественного синтеза, охватывающего разные уровни текста. В произведении наблюдается взаимодействие элементов семейно-бытового романа и военно-исторического повествования, соединение натурализма и импрессионизма, высокой поэтической и просторечной лексики. Автор отказывается от внешней событийности в создании сюжета, использует приемы психологического (и психофизиологического) эскиза, живописного портрета и другие. Внешне бесстрастное повествование нередко прерывается авторскими размышлениями (психологического, философского, социального характера). Э. Гонкур сделал значительный шаг к созданию так называемого типа «безгеройного» романа, когда герой или героиня утрачивают ореол «героического» вследствие ослабления сюжетных коллизий, связанных с ними. В изображении персонажей, которые принадлежат к своей среде, большое значение приобретают не столько события, которые с ними происходят, а впечатления, ощущения, синестезия, выразительные детали, символы и т.д. Роман Э. Гонкура соотносится в статье с исканиями современных ему писателей (Г. Флобера, Э. Золя, Ж.К. Гюисманса и др.), а также достижениями художников-импрессионистов; The article considers the novel «Sherry» (1884) written by E. Goncourt, which reflects the dynamics of the genre of the novel and trends of the literary process in the late nineteenth century. The novel manifests the phenomenon of the artistic synthesis, covering different levels of the text. In the work the interaction of the elements of the everyday life novel and the military-historical narrative are observed, naturalism and impressionism as well as high poetic and vernacular language are intertwined. The author refuses from external eventfulness in the creation of the story, using the methods of psychological (and physiological) sketch, beautiful portrait and others. Impassive narration is often interrupted by the ...

Рассмотрена схема создания системы отопления на базе теплонакопителей. Произведен расчет экономической эффективности использования систем отопления на базе теплонакопителей. Рассчитаны капитальные и текущие затраты, связанные с созданием и эксплуатацией системы отопления на основе теплонакопителей. Определен срок окупаемости затрат при их использовании в сфере жилищно-коммунального хозяйства Украины. ; Розглянута схема створення системи опалення на базі теплонакопичувачів. Проведено розрахунок економічної ефективності використання систем опалення на базі теплонакопичувачів. Розраховані капітальні та поточні витрати, пов'язані зі створенням та експлуатацією системи опалення на основі теплонакопичувачів. Визначений термін окупності витрат при їх використанні в сфері житлово-комунального господарства України. ; This paper focuses on the economic efficiency issues of heating systems employment based on storage heaters. There have been calculated capitalized and current charges involved in establishing and employment of heating systems based on storage heaters. There have been determined payback period upon their employment.As a result of the research conducted by the author, he has reached a conclusion that employment of heating systems based on storage heaters appears profitable not only as compared to electric heating convectors but even as compared to the gas heating. There has been determined that employment of such systems is cost effective. Despite comparatively high initial expenses, heating systems based on storage heaters pay off in 3-8 years compared to the gas heating and in 7-13,5 years compared to electric heating convectors.It is worth mentioning that the main deterrent restraining the economic planning and calculations of technical-and-economic indexes for different heating systems is uncertainty of fee policy in the field of housing and utilities services, coming from unstable economic situation in the country and also political speculations in this area.

The paper analyzes the engineering and technical personnel production status in the Urals in the mid-1920s. The aim is to identify the causes and evolution of changes occurring at the time in the rights and duties of engineers in the industrial sector of the region. The paper is based on Ural archival documents (Proceedings of the Regional Committee of the CPSU (b), the information of the Regional Council of Trade Unions, the investigation of the case of engineers arrested by the OGPU in the late 1920s – early 1930s.). The author concludes that the pragmatic course of the Supreme Economic Council leadership to empower engineers in the field of technical guidance between 1924 and mid-1926 was replaced by an irrational one caused mainly by political factors, and aimed at reducing of the number of engineers' rights. In the context of Ural Region (with the lack of technical staff more acute than nationwide), this leads to particularly pronounced negative consequences. ; В статье анализируется производственный статус инженерно-технических работников Урала в середине 1920-х гг. Целью работы является выявление динамики и причин происходивших в это время изменений в соотношении прав и обязанностей ИТР региона в производственной сфере. Основу работы составляют документы уральских архивов (материалы областного комитета ВКП(б), сведения Областного совета профсоюзов, следственные дела инженеров, арестованных ОГПУ в конце 1920-х – начале 1930-х гг.). Автор приходит к выводу, что прагматичный курс руководства ВСНХ на расширение прав ИТР в области технического руководства 1924 – середины 1926 г. сменяется нерациональной, обусловленной главным образом политическими факторами, линией на урезание прав ИТР. В условиях Уральского региона (наличие еще более острого, чем в целом по стране, дефицита технических специалистов) это приводит к ярковыраженным негативным последствиям.

Надається визначення поняття «фінансовий ризик суб'єкта господарювання». Підкреслюється роль страхування в економічному захисті та стабільному розвитку суб'єкта господарювання. Аналізується проблема відсутності необхідного законодавчого регулювання та нормативного забезпечення страхування фінансових ризиків в Україні. Наводяться види фінансових ризиків, що можуть бути застраховані. Розглядається їх сутність та роль страхування. Надається порівняльна характеристика основних видів програм страхування фінансових ризиків, що представлені в Україні. Значна увага приділяється аналізу страхування у структурі страхового ринку України. Автором розраховано основні показники, що характеризують сучасний стан даного сегмента страхового ринку. Виявлено тенденції розвитку вітчизняного ринку страхування фінансових ризиків. На основі проведеного дослідження виділено основні проблеми, що перешкоджають гармонійному розвитку аналізованого сегмента страхового ринку України. Пропонуються шляхи розв'язання існуючих проблем. ; The article gives a definition of «financial risk of the business entity». The role of insurance in economic protection and sustainable development of the business entity is emphasized. The problem of lack of adequate legislative and regulatory support of financial risk insurance in Ukraine is analyzed. The types of financial risks that can be insured are given. The essence and the role of financial risks insurance are discussed. Comparative characteristics of the main types of financial risk insurance programs in Ukraine are presented. Much attention is paid to the analysis of financial risk insurance in the structure of the insurance market in Ukraine. The main indicators that characterize the current state of this segment of the insurance market are calculated. The tendencies of the domestic insurance market financial risks are presented. The author highlights the main problems that hinder the harmonious development of the analyzed segment of the insurance market in Ukraine. The ways for solution of existing problems are proposed.

Moral (non-patrimonial) damage in Serbian law includes physical and
psychological pain and suffering, and fear of sufficient duration and
intensity. This is a purely subjective concept of moral damage: the mere
infringement of non-patrimonial rights, or violation of personal goods as
objects of these rights, does not constitute moral damage, unless they caused
the plaintiff?s physical or psychological pain, or fear, and disturbed his or
her mental equilibrium. Objectivization of moral damage is a change in this
paradigm, towards the understanding of moral damage as an abstract
infringement of a non-patrimonial right of the injured party, irrespective of
any pain or fear caused by such infringement. Moral damage exists if personal
(non-patrimonial) right, or personal good, or legally protected personal
interest is violated, even if the injured party did not suffer any pain or
fear due to this violation. Since 2005, Croatian legislator has abandoned the
long-standing subjective concept of non-patrimonial damage, and
reconceptualized it as an abstract violation of personal rights, including
personal rights of legal entities. The Commission appointed to draft the new
Civil Code of Serbia considers several modes of either partial or complete
objectivization of the concept of moral damage in the prospective
codification. In this paper the author examines the reasons for such change,
and offers arguments in support of the idea that Serbian legislator should
decide on a mixed conception of non-patrimonial damage, that is, to adhere to
the existing concept of non-patrimonial damage, but also to allow for a
violation of non-patrimonial goods or legally protected interests to be
recognized as a type of moral damage, regardless of any psychological
suffering coming out of such infringement.

The article seeks to elucidate some controversial problems of the formation of both civic and national selfconsciousness through analysing the politics of identity and citizenship, which has assumed increasing importance in Western and Eastern European countries. Citizenship is considered as a dynamic construct that should be viewed as a 'process' through which specific rights and obligations are exercised. The central task, therefore, is to analyse the evolution of various conceptions of citizenship in the light of historical experience, continuity and change, as well as the process of transformation of the model of political education that has emerged within the framework of the liberal political culture of the 19th century and has continued to exert a great impact on the development of political discourse in the modern world. Special attention is given to the comparative analysis of the models of civic and national identity in the USA, Western and Eastern Europe, including post-communist Russia. The author argues that the conception of identity as well, as the criteria for its defi nition, have become crucial in the discussion of problems of citizenship and political education. The issue remains whether an effective model of political education alone, i.e. without active citizens' involvement and support, can have the potential not only to transform a political culture, but also influence the whole system of both secondary and university education. The final aim of the article is to prove the idea that a new conception of citizenship and political education could, in conditions of a deepening crisis, become the most important link binding civil society and the new content of the political making its way through corporative interests.

Situations with uncertain developments and results are more often taking place in the world of politics. In this regard, the role of actors who are interested in the implementation of plans for peaceful conflict resolution and non-violence is becoming more urgent. The modern world is replete with situations in which a decision should be made only by qualified intermediaries (mediators), whose purpose is to resolve the conflict by the most effective and painless method. This article discusses the main aspects of the technology which is new for the political reality - political mediation as a vital means for solving complex inter-ethnic and interconfessional problems. The author attempts to identify general and specific characteristics of the conflict field that are peculiar for both international and inter-ethnic contradictions arising in the process of multilateral relations of nations with each other and between ethnic groups in multi-ethnic space. At this, the attention is focused on the fact that the conflicts arise out of the contradictions between the interests of these social organisms. The article provides the system of argumentation of the thesis that the use of mediation technologies helps to achieve the combination of the parties' autonomy and to guarantee a mutually beneficial result on a common ground. For this purpose the conflicting parties endow a third party with certain powers - the mediator, who is involved in order to look at the conflict from the side and help conflicting actors to get rid of excessive emotion and bias in a dispute. Thus, political mediation is a form of alternative expert and political dispute resolution and settlement, voluntarily elected by conflicting communities on the basis of their desire to reach agreement and political objectivity. (author's abstract)

This article considers major trends in the spatial and sectoral structure of national production and analyses the patterns of transformation of industrial systems into integrated industrial complexes, which show higher efficiency in transit condiétions. The author presents a new approach to studying the structural transformation of industrial systems during the transition of the national economy, which will make it possible to identify major trends in national production. The article seeks to draw attention to the methodology of developing and implementing industrial policy and devising an algorithm of effective transition of Russian industries in the modern conditions of international division of labor. The modernization and transnationalization of national production rests on a number of methods that make it possible for the corporate management to react rapidly to changes in the global market situation. These methods include strategic segmentation, analyzing the ability to adapt to the expected conditions, devising a company's entrepreneurial strategy, and changes in the spatial and industrial structure of production. The transformation of national industry is associated with the introduction of mechanisms of industrial integration structures using single organizational production modules capable of rational combination and transformation of the elements of national production structure to create competitive transnational production associations, such as clusters and other production forms serving as 'growth poles' and becoming elements of the emerging framework for national production. This methodology makes it possible to develop new approaches, methods, and principles for analyzing the transformation of the national spatial and industrial system during economic transition. Current factors, features, patterns and trends in the transformation of national industrial systems are identified; a mechanism for devising and implementing a more structured industrial policy in Russia is developed

This article considers the legitimacy of political regimes in the Baltic States by analysing three major parameters: confidence in political institutions, level of corruption, and the development of their party systems. The author identifies the major crisis trends in the legitimacy of the political regimes of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The article stresses the problem of legitimacy reproduction resulting from the limited representation of the national party systems. Special attention is paid to compensatory mechanisms used by political elites to "artificially" reproduce legitimacy. It makes sense to analyse the deficit of legitimacy in the Baltic States not only in the context of threats to democratic institutions but also considering weaknesses of public institutions and insufficient resources to ensure stateness. This requires developing a hypothesis about smaller states "importing" legitimacy from larger states and intergovernmental organisations, in whose zone of influence they are included. In other words, the EU and NATO can provide smaller states not only with economic and military resources but also legitimation "resources" using their prestige to support the belief of local residents that there is no alternative to the current political system of social organisation. Legitimacy deficit increases the risks of a rift between political elites in the Baltic States, which can become a prologue to a deep political crisis. In these conditions, compensatory mechanisms cannot be considered as targeted exclusively at broad social strata. They are also aimed at political elites, whose consolidation or "encapsulation" is achieved by exaggerating external threats and resorting to repressive measures in an attempt to develop an ethnonational consensus. These methods are used to ensure self-preservation of the Baltic States political regimes within the current ideological and institutional configuration.

In June 2015 the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy announced an amendment to the Labour Code, which is the reaction to the prevalence of employment based on-fixed term contracts in Poland. The scale of this phenomenon is not observed in any other E. U. state. New regulations may result in a decrease in the share of fixed-term employees of the total number of employees to be observed in the last few years. The Ministry intends to replace the limit of the renewals of a job contract concluded with an employee (currently the second renewal of the contract results in the conclusion of a permanent job contract) with another restriction: the total duration of such contracts should not exceed 33 months. The problem of an excessive share of flexible forms of employment has been widely analysed in the literature in recent years. It has become the subject of studies in the area of economy and sociology as well as an issue addressed by labour law experts. The expansion of flexibility has also received criticism from the trade unions, which influenced the mass media discourse - it is enough to mention the popularity of the term 'junk contracts' since 2012. The author attempts to comprehensively analyse the problem of flexible forms of employment, which include such issues as: the reasons for their popularity among employers, the scale of the use of particular forms based on the available statistical data, the construction of protective regulations of domestic labour law in the light of the requirements resulting from the E. U. and the I. L. O. membership, as well as social and economic consequences of the use of flexible forms of employment.

In the article the author analyses the role of government in developing the information technology sector in India, specifically its influence on the three factors that determine the development of the information technology sector: human resources, launch capital and infrastructure. By developing these factors, the Indian government has succeeded in prompt formation and promotion of the information technology sector. The development of human capital is mainly realized by developing public education programs. The establishment of close ties with the Indian diaspora played a crucial role. The diaspora acted as a link for transmission to India of expertise, investment and knowledge. The availability of start-up capital, especially venture capital, is another essential component for the success of the national information technology sector. The conditions created by a government for the development of the institution of venture investment in the country will be of fundamental importance. Thanks to the measures taken by the government of India, venture capital investment has become the main form of financing for start-ups in the information technology sector in India. Developed infrastructure is also an important factor in the development of the information technology sector. In India, a developing country with a vast territory, there was a problem of infrastructure development, and software technology parks became a solution to this problem for companies in the information technology sector. Over the past 20 years, software technology parks in India has evolved so that industrial parks created almost 50% of the total exports of the IT sector in India. The demonstrated state policy can be characterized as the model of state technological entrepreneurship according to which the Indian government played the roles of regulator, producer and promoter in the information technology sector and continues to do so until the present day.

In cloud service provisioning, spot instances are spare slots for which it has no pre-booking, unlike reserved or on-demand instances for which a cloud service provider (CSP) has a priori booking. CSPs like Amazon prefer spot instance approach to sell their "idle" computing resources as and when these idle slots appear. Though they price the spot instances dynamically depending on supply-demand status, usually the spots instances are relatively cheap. Hence, Amazon's spot instances are an attractive option for IT managers in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that normally have sporadic requirements for resources. However, SMEs have to win their desired spot instances through the auction mechanism conducted by Amazon. Since the IT manager always looks for finishing her job quickly within some specified budget, finding how to bid for spot instances in order to stay within its limited budget is a challenging task for her. She may continue to consume spot instances as long as her bid exceeds the current spot price. But, if she loses at any point, the unfinished task must be put on hold by some checkpointing mechanism so that the task may resume from the same point when she wins the spot next time. Using simulations for a very popular cloud, namely Amazon EC2, it has been found that, at a lower bid price, OPTIMAL checkpointing leads to a total cost higher than the total HOURLY checkpointing cost on a much higher bid value. Therefore, SMEs should go for higher bid prices when using OPTIMAL checkpointing and lower bid prices with HOURLY checkpointing. In the process, the author has observed some interesting correlation among checkpoint strategy, task reliability and completion time, which is reported here.

Communal conflicts, civil wars, and state collapse have led many to portray the notion of African nation-states as an oxymoron. Some scholars of African politics—often referred to as second-generation modernization theorists—have argued that strong ethnic attachments across the continent resulted from rapid economic and political modernization, the very forces credited with reducing parochial ties and consolidating European nations in classic modernization theory. Others have argued that national consolidation in Africa is particularly unlikely due to high degrees of ethnic diversity, colonial rule that exacerbated that diversity, and the partition of cultural groups. Despite the ubiquity of these arguments, there has been very little comparative empirical research on territorial nationalism in Africa. Using individual-level data from sixteen countries, combined with a novel compilation of ethnic group and state characteristics, the author evaluates the observable implications of these long-respected theoretical traditions within a multilevel framework. She finds that attachment to the nation, relative to one's ethnic group, increases with education, urbanization, and formal employment at the individual level, and with economic development at the state level—patterns more consistent with classic modernization theory than with second-generation modernization theory. Thus, if modernization in Africa does indeed intensify ethnic attachment, the impact is overwhelmed by the concurrent increase in panethnic territorial nationalism. Similarly, the results show that ethnic diversity and the partition of ethnic groups by "artificial" state borders increase, rather than decrease, the degree to which individuals identify nationally. Taken together, these results reject pessimistic expectations of African exceptionalism and instead suggest that the emergence of widespread national identification within African states is not only possible but even increasingly likely with greater economic development.