scholarly journals Competitiveness as a Decisive Criterion for Sustainability

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (Special edition 2020/2) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
György Matolcsy

Competitiveness and sustainability are inseparable concepts. Competitiveness cannot be interpreted in the short term, and thus it cannot exist without sustainability as well. At both the corporate and national economy level, only those who can maintain their outstanding performance, in the long run, are the winners in global competition. There are two roads to achieving these two goals simultaneously, and they can even be followed at the same time. On the one hand, moving away from quantitative factors towards quality, and on the other hand, looking for new resources and making old resources unlimited by using them in a sustainable, “green” manner. With the development of digitalisation, data is becoming a more important resource than ever before, while money and access to energy may become unlimited. No segment of the economy can ignore revolutionary changes, such as the green and digital transition, but proper cooperation between the state and the market is necessary to achieve and maintain competitiveness and sustainability.

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
Henryk Wnorowski ◽  

Goal – this article’s main goal is to showing that the truly important economic processes happen at the microeconomic level, they happen in enterprises. This is where the surplus value is produced. Producing this value is not easy, however, and is associated with a number of challenges. Research methodology – the author focuses on the descriptive method, which shows, on the one hand, the importance of activity at the microeconomic level, and on the other hand, indicating selected challenges faced by modern enterprises. Score/results – the article allowed to indicate the specificity of conditions in which modern enterprises operate. Large number of them are able to maintain their position in the industry for a very long time. It is able, but it is not so sure. In the conditions of global competition, nothing is certain in the long run, including the position of enterprises. They can work better or worse, they can be very small or larger, they can grow or curl, unfortunately they also fall. Originality/value – the article is a standard description of economic reality. It has no novelty or innovative aspects, it only organizes the described reality.


2021 ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Taras G. Vasyltsiv ◽  
Yaroslav M. Antonyuk ◽  
Yaroslav P. Berezivskyi

The purpose of the article is to identify shortcomings and substantiate the directions of the state policy to intensify the development of bank lending in the context of overcoming financial imbalances and ensuring structural reform of the national economy of Ukraine. Methods. The research is based on general scientific methods and approaches, system approach, general logical research methods (analysis, synthesis, generalization and comparison), the method of strategic management. Results. The article shows the conceptual relationship between bank lending to the economy and economic growth along with a structural economic reform. The key indicators of volumes, structure and tendencies of bank lending development, as well as measures of distribution of bank lending to the economy are analysed. Conclusions concerning sufficiency of bank lending for its proper contribution to the development of the real sector of the national economy are made. The current research describes the shortcomings of the structure of Ukraine’s economy formed at the current stage of socio-economic development of the country, which, in fact, are systemic obstacles to the restoration of economic growth and modernization of the social sphere of Ukraine. Strategic directions and means of the state policy for bank lending development are identified. Their implementation is supposed to intensify the bank lending to the economy and the consumer sector, on the one hand, and provide a positive impact of these processes on intensifying structural changes in the national economy, on the other hand. The structural scheme of reforming the institutional and legal mechanism of the state policy for bank lending development in Ukraine has been developed. The expected structural changes in the system of the national economy are determined, on which the development of bank lending in Ukraine is focused. Practical contribution. The implementation of the proposed measures at the level of the National Bank of Ukraine and the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine will stimulate banks, on the one hand, and businesses, on the other hand, to increase bank lending to the economy, in particular in those sectors having a positive effect on the key structural characteristics of the economy, such as development of strategic industries, de-shadowing, growth of innovation activity, the overall strengthening of the economic competitiveness. Prospects for further research. The obtained results are the basis for modelling and forecasting the implications for the state policy for intensification of bank lending and providing necessary structural changes in the national economy.


2018 ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Mamonov

Our analysis documents that the existence of hidden “holes” in the capital of not yet failed banks - while creating intertemporal pressure on the actual level of capital - leads to changing of maturity of loans supplied rather than to contracting of their volume. Long-term loans decrease, whereas short-term loans rise - and, what is most remarkably, by approximately the same amounts. Standardly, the higher the maturity of loans the higher the credit risk and, thus, the more loan loss reserves (LLP) banks are forced to create, increasing the pressure on capital. Banks that already hide “holes” in the capital, but have not yet faced with license withdrawal, must possess strong incentives to shorten the maturity of supplied loans. On the one hand, it raises the turnovers of LLP and facilitates the flexibility of capital management; on the other hand, it allows increasing the speed of shifting of attracted deposits to loans to related parties in domestic or foreign jurisdictions. This enlarges the potential size of ex post revealed “hole” in the capital and, therefore, allows us to assume that not every loan might be viewed as a good for the economy: excessive short-term and insufficient long-term loans can produce the source for future losses.


Author(s):  
Peter Coss

In the introduction to his great work of 2005, Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham urged not only the necessity of carefully framing our studies at the outset but also the importance of closely defining the words and concepts that we employ, the avoidance ‘cultural sollipsism’ wherever possible and the need to pay particular attention to continuities and discontinuities. Chris has, of course, followed these precepts on a vast scale. My aim in this chapter is a modest one. I aim to review the framing of thirteenth-century England in terms of two only of Chris’s themes: the aristocracy and the state—and even then primarily in terms of the relationship between the two. By the thirteenth century I mean a long thirteenth century stretching from the period of the Angevin reforms of the later twelfth century on the one hand to the early to mid-fourteenth on the other; the reasons for taking this span will, I hope, become clearer during the course of the chapter, but few would doubt that it has a validity.


Target ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Iribarren

This article explores translational literary Web 2.0 practices and user-generated cultural creations on the Internet, focusing on video poetry that re-creates canonical poets’ bodies of work. It will be argued that the use of for-profit platforms like YouTube and Vimeo by indie creators and translators of video poetry favours the emergence of new translational attitudes, practices and objects that have positive but also contentious effects. One the one hand, these online mediators explore new poetic expressions and tend to make the most of the potential for dissemination of poetic heritage, providing visibility to non-hegemonic literatures. On the other hand, however, these translational digitally-born practices and creations by voluntary and subaltern mediators might reinforce the hegemonic position of large American Internet corporations at the risk of commodifying cultural capital, consolidating English as a lingua franca and perhaps, in the long run, even fostering a potentially monocultural and internationally homogeneous aesthetics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 650-672
Author(s):  
Josef Weinzierl

AbstractQuite a few recent ECJ judgments touch on various elements of territorial rule. Thereby, they raise the profile of the main question this Article asks: Which territorial claims does the EU make? To provide an answer, the present Article discusses and categorizes the individual elements of territoriality in the EU’s architecture. The influence of EU law on national territorial rule on the one hand and the emergence of territorial governance elements at the European level on the other provide the main pillars of the inquiry. Once combined, these features not only help to improve our understanding of the EU’s distinctly supranational conception of territoriality. What is more, the discussion raises several important legitimacy questions. As a consequence, the Article calls for the development of a theoretical model to evaluate and justify territoriality in a political community beyond the state.


Virittäjä ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildikó Vecsernyés

Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan, kuinka Suomen ja Unkarin pääministereitä puhutellaan Facebookissa. Tutkimuksen kohteena on se, mitä puhuttelukeinoja kommentoijat käyttävät kahdessa eri tarkoituksessa: toisaalta sympatian tai samaa mieltä olemisen, toisaalta erimielisyyden tai kritiikin ilmaisemisessa. Kahden sukukielen, suomen ja unkarin, puhuttelukeinot ovat samankaltaisia, mutta niiden käytössä on huomattavia eroja esimerkiksi sinuttelun ja teitittelyn yleisyydessä. Aineistona on viiteen Suomen pääministeri Juha Sipilän ja yhdeksään Unkarin pääministeri Viktor Orbánin vuosina 2015–2017 kirjoittamaan Facebook-päivitykseen tulleita kommentteja. Tarkastelun kohteena on 189 suomenkielistä ja 191 unkarinkielistä puhuttelumuotoa sisältävää kommenttia. Kommentit on jaettu myötäileviin ja vastustaviin ja näitä kahta kommenttityyppiä tarkastellaan kvantitatiivisesti ja kvalitatiivisesti pyrkimyksenä selvittää, mitä eroja puhuttelumuodon valinnassa ilmenee. Tutkimuksen teoreettis-metodisena taustana on aiempi sosiopragmaattinen puhuttelututkimus. Tutkimus osoittaa, että suomessa sinuttelu on hyvin yleistä riippumatta kommentin laadusta, mutta unkarissa sinuttelu on tavallisesti erimielisyyden osoittamisen keino. Tyypillinen kannustavan kommentin kirjoittaja käyttää suomessa sinuttelua ja pääministerin etunimeä, unkarissa teitittelyä, ön-teitittelypronominia ja pääministerin titteliä. Unkarin kielessä puhuteltavan yhteiskunnallinen asema vaikuttaakin puhuttelumuodon valintaan vahvemmin kuin suomessa. Toissijaisena strategiana unkarissa esiintyy jonkin verran myös uudenlaista kunnioittavaa sinuttelua yhdistettynä pääministerin etunimen käyttöön. Suomenkielisen aineiston vastustavissa kommenteissa esiintyy vielä todennäköisemmin sinuttelua kuin myötäilevissä kommenteissa sekä sinä-pronominia ja pääministerin sukunimeä, unkarinkielisessä aineistossa puolestaan sinuttelua, te ’sinä’ -pronominia ja pääministerin etu- tai sukunimeä tai nimenmuunnoksia. Toissijaisena strategiana joissain unkarin vastustavissa kommenteissa hyödynnetään ylikohteliaisuutta ja intentionaalista inkoherenssia. Aineiston perusteella näyttää siltä, että Facebook-kommenteissa käytetään suomessa etupäässä sinuttelua samoin kuin muissakin internetkeskusteluissa; kommentoijien mielipiteen ilmaisemisessa nominaalisilla puhuttelumuodoilla on tärkeä rooli. Unkarissa taas internetin yleisestä sinuttelupainotteisuudesta huolimatta tärkeimpänä keinona on sinuttelun ja teitittelyn vastakkainasettelu.   How to address a Prime Minister? Forms of address in comments to posts from the Prime Ministers of Finland and Hungary This article examines how the Prime Ministers of Finland and Hungary are addressed on Facebook. The aim of the study is to investigate which forms of address are used by commentators expressing, on the one hand, sympathy or consent, and on the other, disagreement or criticism. The repertoires of address forms of these two related languages, Finnish and Hungarian, bear many similarities, but the frequency and status of these forms are different. The data consists of comments on five posts written by Prime Minister of Finland Juha Sipilä and on nine posts written by Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán between 2015–2017, comprising a total of 189 comments in Finnish and 191 comments in Hungarian, all containing forms of address. The comments have been divided into two types: comments showing sympathy and comments showing disagreement or criticism. These two comment types have been analysed quantitatively and qualitatively aiming to determine how the address practices employed differ from each other. The theoretical background of this study is based upon previously conducted socio­pragmatic address research. The article shows that the use of T forms  is very common in Finnish, regardless of the type of comment, but that in Hungarian, T forms are typically used as a linguistic tool to express disagreement. In Finnish, a typical commentator showing sympathy will use T forms and address the Prime Minister by his first name, whereas in Hungarian V forms, the V form pronoun ön, and the title ‘Prime Minister’ are favoured. The social status of the addressee has a stronger effect on the choice of address forms in Hungarian than it does in Finnish. However, some Hungarian comments include a new, respectful type of T form used with the first name of the Prime Minister. In comments expressing disagreement in the Finnish data, writers favour T forms, especially T form pronouns, and the use of the Prime Minister’s surname, whereas in the Hungarian data T forms, the T form pronoun te ‘you’ and the use of the Prime Minister’s first name, surname or nicknames are the most typical address practices. In conclusion, commentators in the Finnish data seem to use mostly T forms on Facebook, thus imitating address practices common in other online conversations. Instead of the T/V opposition, nominal forms of address play an important role in expressing the commentators’ attitude. In the Hungarian data, despite the prevalence of the T forms in online chats, the most important resource in expressing relation to the Prime Minister seems to be the contrast between the T and V forms, reflecting their significant status in Hungarian.


2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia R. Lazzari-Dean ◽  
Anneliese M.M. Gest ◽  
Evan W. Miller

Membrane potential (Vmem) is a fundamental biophysical signal present in all cells. Vmem signals range in time from milliseconds to days, and they span lengths from microns to centimeters. Vmem affects many cellular processes, ranging from neurotransmitter release to cell cycle control to tissue patterning. However, existing tools are not suitable for Vmem quantification in many of these areas. In this review, we outline the diverse biology of Vmem, drafting a wish list of features for a Vmem sensing platform. We then use these guidelines to discuss electrode-based and optical platforms for interrogating Vmem. On the one hand, electrode-based strategies exhibit excellent quantification but are most effective in short-term, cellular recordings. On the other hand, optical strategies provide easier access to diverse samples but generally only detect relative changes in Vmem. By combining the respective strengths of these technologies, recent advances in optical quantification of absolute Vmem enable new inquiries into Vmem biology. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Biophysics, Volume 50 is May 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


Author(s):  
José Duke S. Bagulaya

Abstract This article argues that international law and the literature of civil war, specifically the narratives from the Philippine communist insurgency, present two visions of the child. On the one hand, international law constructs a child that is individual and vulnerable, a victim of violence trapped between the contending parties. Hence, the child is a person who needs to be insulated from the brutality of the civil war. On the other hand, the article reads Filipino writer Kris Montañez’s stories as revolutionary tales that present a rational child, a literary resolution of the dilemmas of a minor’s participation in the world’s longest-running communist insurgency. Indeed, the short narratives collected in Kabanbanuagan (Youth) reveal a tension between a minor’s right to resist in the context of the people’s war and the juridical right to be insulated from the violence. As their youthful bodies are thrown into the world of the state of exception, violence forces children to make the choice of active participation in the hostilities by symbolically and literally assuming the roles played by their elders in the narrative. The article concludes that while this narrative resolution appears to offer a realistic representation and closure, what it proffers is actually a utopian vision that is in tension with international law’s own utopian vision of children. Thus, international law and the stories of youth in Kabanbanuagan provide a powerful critique of each other’s utopian visions.


1967 ◽  
Vol 71 (677) ◽  
pp. 342-343
Author(s):  
F. H. East

The Aviation Group of the Ministry of Technology (formerly the Ministry of Aviation) is responsible for spending a large part of the country's defence budget, both in research and development on the one hand and production or procurement on the other. In addition, it has responsibilities in many non-defence fields, mainly, but not exclusively, in aerospace.Few developments have been carried out entirely within the Ministry's own Establishments; almost all have required continuous co-operation between the Ministry and Industry. In the past the methods of management and collaboration and the relative responsibilities of the Ministry and Industry have varied with time, with the type of equipment to be developed, with the size of the development project and so on. But over the past ten years there has been a growing awareness of the need to put some system into the complex business of translating a requirement into a specification and a specification into a product within reasonable bounds of time and cost.


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