Celebrity as a political resource: the human rights now! campaign

The use of celebrities as endorsers of causes and even political candidates has become ubiquitous in modern culture. Aided by the rise of mass and social media the impact of celebrity on the organizations that use their power is seldom examined. This work critically reviews the role celebrity played in one of the first and largest events of its kind—Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! global tour of rock musicians in 1989. It analyzes both the short-term human rights goals of the tour and the long-term influence the tour had on organizational culture

ON THE QUANTUM THEORY OF ISOTOPE EFFECTS IN ELECTROMIGRATION AND THERMOMIGRATION OF LIGHT INTERSTITIALS

The electromigration and thermomigration of light interstitials, such as hydrogen in metals, have been examined in terms of the quantum theory of diffusion of Flynn and Stoneham. The pronounced isotope effect observed in the effective charge Z* is shown to come from the differences in the self trapping distortions of the various isotopes. The qualitative dependence of Z* on isotope, host lattice and temperature are correctly predicted. The interstitial contribution to the reduced heat of transport Q* is calculated directly from the quantum theory

Thermodynamic properties of QCD with two flavors of Wilson-type lattice quarks

I report on a study of finite temperature QCD by the CP-PACS Collaboration toward a precise determination of the equation of state with dynamical u,d quarks. Based on a systematic simulation using improved Wilson-type quarks on lattices with temporal size $N_t=4$ and 6, the energy density and pressure are calculated as functions of temperature and renormalized light quark mass in the range $T/T_c \approx 0.7$--2.5 and $m_{\rm PS}/m_{\rm V} = 0.65$--0.95. Results for $N_t=4$ are found to contain significant scaling violations, while results for $N_t=6$ are suggested to be not far from the continuum limit. On the other hand, the quark mass dependence in the EOS turned out to be small for m_{\rm PS}/m_{\rm V} \simlt 0.8.Comment: Talk presented at Statistical QCD, Aug. 26-30, 2001, Bielefeld, Germany. LaTeX2e, 6 pages, 4 PS figures, espcrc1.sty neede

Banking consolidation in Nigeria, 2000-2010

This study examines the Nigerian banking consolidation process using a dynamic panel for the period 2000-2010. The Arellano and Bond (1991) dynamic GMM approach is adopted to estimate a cost function taking into account the possible endogeneity of the covariates. The main finding is that the Nigerian banking sector has benefited from the consolidation process, and specifically that foreign ownership, mergers and acquisitions and bank size decrease costs. Directions for future research are also discussed

The role of philosophical context in the development of research methodology and theory

The research strategy dictates the major direction of the research and constitutes one of the important decisions made by the researcher. However, researchers’ understanding on theory at the outset of the research guides the design of the research. The paper presents an overview of the involvement of theory within different research philosophies, approaches and methods. The relationship between data and theory is an issue that has been long debated. Moving from data to theory is commonly discussed in social constructionism with inductive approach and ideographic methods. However, within positivism philosophy with deductive approach and nomothetic methods, moving from theory to data is common. However, the growing concept of philosophical pluralism and methodological pluralism challenges the polarised views on philosophies and approaches, which suggests that methodologies are best used in complementary way. Keywords – Research Philosophy, Research Methods, Induction, Deduction, Theory, Pluralis

The role of philosophical context in the development of theory: Towards methodological pluralism

The research strategy dictates the major direction of the research and constitutes one of the important decisions made by the researcher. However, researchers’ understanding on theory at the outset of the research guides the design of the research. The paper presents an overview of the involvement of theory within different research philosophies, approaches and methods. The relationship between data and theory is an issue that has been long debated. Moving from data to theory is commonly discussed in social constructionism with inductive approach and ideographic methods. However, within positivism philosophy with deductive approach and nomothetic methods, moving from theory to data is common. However, the growing concept of philosophical pluralism and methodological pluralism challenges the polarised views on philosophies and approaches, which suggests that methodologies are best used in complementary way

Ageing and personal retirement savings plan participation with heterogeneity in preferences: The Portuguese case

This paper analyses the relationship between ageing and personal retirement savings plan participation in the Portuguese population, taking into account heterogeneity and endogeneity in preferences. A mixed logit model is used to analyse the determinants of retirement saving behaviour, allowing for heterogeneity and endogeneity in the responses. We find considerable heterogeneity among individuals (in terms of socio-economic variables such as age, gender and income), which must be taken into account by any policy aimed at changing retirement saving behaviour