Cuba,Trade Dependency and the GATT/WTO System

Cuba sought economic independence from the U.S. and its reliance on sugar exports after its 1959 revolution, but subsequently developed new dependency relationships. In the meantime, Cuba remained inside the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), despite conducting most of its trade outside it. This paper explores the political economy of Cuba’s participation in the GATT and later the World Trade Organization (WTO). Documents show that Cuba sought to use its participation to gain new markets and influence in the developing world. While Cuba has gained little economically from its participation, in recent years it has diversified its exports and trade partners, and its trade interests now align more closely with WTO rules. Economic reforms will be necessary in order for Cuba to benefit.     

Analysis of the Efficacy of Public Spending on Research and Development in State Programs

This paper presents an approach to assessing the efficacy of public spending on research and development in state programs. At present, there is a need to develop a unified approach to the analysis and evaluation of the efficacy of such spending from the perspective of participants in state programs (federal executive bodies). The proposed approach does not allow evaluating the efficacy of public spending on the development of research areas assigned to the authors.     

Teacher opinions regarding the perception management levels of school administrators

The purpose of this research is to determine the levels and use of perception management by school administrators. The study group consists of teachers working in Private Primary School and Secondary Schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Nicosia, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the 2016–2017 academic year. The sample of the study is composed of 282 teachers representing the universe selected by the method of easy reachable case sampling. As a means of collecting data in the survey, “Personal Information Form” by Kline (An easy guide to factor analysis, Routledge, New York, 1994) and “Manager Perception Management ent Scale” developed by Uylas (Yönetici Alg? Yönetimi Ölçe?i, Türkiye Ölçme Araçlar? Dizini, 2017a, Okul Yöneticilerinin Sosyal-Duygusal E?itim Liderli?i ve Alg? Yönetimine ?li?kin Ö?retmen Görü?leri, T.C. Abant ?zzet Baysal Üniversitesi, E?itim Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Bolu, 2017b) was used. The obtained data were analyzed in an analysis program. In the research, the values of perception management use levels of managers according to teacher opinions were examined. According to the results and comments obtained from the research, some of the proposals developed for researchers and educators working in the field of education management are as follows. Towards practical; trainings can be given on how school administrators can use perception management for successful perception management practices in educational organizations. In interviews to select school administrators, choosing school administrator with high perception management skills can be prioritized. Towards newstudies; including multidimensional evaluation of all elements of educational organizations such as managers, parents and servants in new researches to be conducted and comparison of teachers ‘and administrators’ views. This study has brought out suggestions that can be implemented in other stages of education.     

Déjà lu: On the limits of data reuse across multiple publications

Scholars in our field, Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM), are under high pressure to show research productivity. At most schools, this productivity is measured by the number of journal articles published. One possible response to such pressure is to improve research efficiency: publishing more journal articles from each data collection effort. In other words, using one dataset for multiple publications. As long as each publication makes a sufficient contribution, and authors ensure transparency in methods and consistency across publications, generating more than one publication from one data collection effort is possible. The aim of this Notes and Debates article, however, is to draw attention to inappropriate reuse of empirical data in OSCM research, to explain its implications and to suggest ways in which to promote research quality and integrity. Based on two cases of extensive data reuse in OSCM, eighteen problematic practices associated with the reuse of data across multiple journal articles are identified. Recommendations on this issue of data reuse are provided for authors, reviewers, editors and readers.     

Reference group influence on binary choices dynamics

The recent literature has analyzed binary choices dynamics providing interesting results. Most of these contributions consider interactions within a single group. Nevertheless, in some situations the interaction takes place not only within a single group but also between different groups. In this paper, we investigate the choice dynamics when considering two populations where one serves as a reference group. Considering this influence effect enriches the dynamics. Although the structurally stable resulting dynamics are attracting cycles only, with any positive integer period, the reference group makes the dynamics of the influenced population much more complex. We considered both the possibility that the reference group has the same or the opposite attitude toward the distribution over the choices. We show how the dynamics and the bifurcation structure are modified under the influence of the reference group. Our results illustrate how the propensity to switch choices in the reference groups may, indirectly, affect choices in the first group.     

Competition and cooperation in the exploitation of the groundwater resource

We study the exploitation of a common groundwater resource, first as a static and then as a differential game, in order to take into account the strategic and dynamic interactions among the users of the resource. We suppose that firms can form coalitions or can decide not to cooperate. The non-cooperation regime is characterized by pumping that lead to depletion of the aquifer; the cooperation preserves the resource. Open-loop and feedback equilibria have been computed and compared in order to characterize the existence of cooperators and defectors in water resources management.     

Data-based mechanistic modelling and forecasting globally averaged surface temperature

The main objective of this paper it to model the dynamic relationship between global averaged measures of Total Radiative Forcing (RTF) and surface temperature, measured by the Global Temperature Anomaly (GTA), and then use this model to forecast the GTA. The analysis utilizes the Data-Based Mechanistic (DBM) approach to the modelling and forecasting where, in this application, the unobserved component model includes a novel hybrid Box-Jenkins stochastic model in which the relationship between RTF and GTA is based on a continuous time transfer function (differential equation) model. This model then provides the basis for short term, inter-annual to decadal, forecasting of the GTA, using a transfer function form of the Kalman Filter, which produces a good prediction of the ‘pause’ or ‘levelling’ in the temperature rise over the period 2000 to 2011. This derives in part from the effects of a quasi-periodic component that is modelled and forecast by a Dynamic Harmonic Regression (DHR) relationship and is shown to be correlated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index.