Red Queen Effect

"It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place" (Lewis Carroll)

questões que me angustiam todos os dias...

Caro(a) colega



Que fazer quando o TOC se vê impossibilitado de cumprir prazos legais devido a doença ou parto? Por que motivo os revisores oficiais de contas têm a figura de “ROC suplente” e os técnicos de contas não?



Em que condições concretas pode a administração fiscal reverter para o TOC a responsabilidade prevista no artigo 24.º da LGT? A quem interessa a ambiguidade da lei?



Como pode um TOC obter formação de que está a necessitar com urgência sobre um tema específico? Passar um dia inteiro a ouvir um formador falar é uma formação eficaz, ou serve essencialmente para cumprir a obrigação de créditos?



Por que motivo são apagadas do fórum no site da Internet da OTOC mensagens que se referem a questões incómodas para a actual direcção da OTOC?



Sabe quanto vai ser investido na “Casa TOC” e quantos dos 80.000 profissionais poderão vir a usufruir dela?



Estas e outras questões foram consideradas na elaboração do programa eleitoral da LISTA C, concorrente às próximas eleições para os órgãos da Ordem dos Técnicos Oficiais de Contas. Acreditamos que a LISTA C é portadora de respostas e propostas sérias e credíveis para a melhoria e desenvolvimento sustentado da profissão, propostas que vão ao encontro das dificuldades e expectativas de todos os profissionais.



Convidamo-lo a verificar isso mesmo consultando o programa, notícias e diversos outros textos informativos nos sites da candidatura:



www.alternativadefuturo.com
www.alternativadefuturo.blogspot.com



É importante que o(a) colega exerça o seu direito de voto, intervindo dessa forma na evolução da profissão de Técnico Oficial de Contas.



Lista C – Alternativa de Futuro

Pela Profissão e com todos os Profissionais

If real life was like Facebook

light graffiti

so sad... so early

there we go again...

Paradox

http://images.alibris.com/

Gideon Obarzanek’s Digital Moves

Gideon Obarzanek’s Digital Moves from PopTech on Vimeo.

árvores

Classic Television Commercials 1948

all and more in the Internet Archive

Stand up for research

Statement

The latest proposal by the higher education funding councils is for 25% of the new Research Excellence Framework (REF) to be assessed according to 'economic and social impact'. As academics, researchers and higher education professionals we believe that it is counterproductive to make funding for the best research conditional on its perceived economic and social benefits.

The REF proposals are founded on a lack of understanding of how knowledge advances. It is often difficult to predict which research will create the greatest practical impact. History shows us that in many instances it is curiosity-driven research that has led to major scientific and cultural advances.

If implemented, these proposals risk undermining support for basic research across all disciplines and may well lead to an academic brain drain to countries such as the United States that continue to value fundamental research.

Universities must continue to be spaces in which the spirit of adventure thrives and where researchers enjoy academic freedom to push back the boundaries of knowledge in their disciplines.

We, therefore, call on the UK funding councils to withdraw the current REF proposals and to work with academics and researchers on creating a funding regime which supports and fosters basic research in our universities and colleges rather than discourages it.

Discoveries that would not survive the REF (.pdf) [213kb]

Emancipação

Porque vale a pena: sem nada

A testosterona reduz a generosidade

The Chronicle of Philanthropy
3 Dezembro

Hormone Inhibits Giving in Men, Study Finds

Scientists have found that giving to others triggers a warm glow, similar to the endorphin-induced highs that people have after sex, a good meal, or indulging in opiates. Now a new study finds another link between sex and charity — or, rather, the lack of charity.

The researchers, two California economists, studied the effects of the sex hormone testosterone on the generosity of male university students. Higher levels of testosterone, they found, made the students both more reluctant to give to others and more demanding that others give to them...

Belissimo artista

Installations, videos and projects in public space
by Oliver Ressler

belissima ideia

e as outras também do prémio The Fun Theory

the paradox of choice

economics is a social science after all

The Financial Crisis: How Economists Went Astray

Two Nobel Laureates and over 2000 Signatories Uphold that Economists have Mistaken Mathematical Beauty for Economic Truth


On 2nd September 2009, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash “the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.”

An online declaration in support of a fuller extract from Krugman’s article (see the text below) has received over 2000 signatures in little over a month. This is already higher than all earlier appeals for the reform of economics, since and including the June 2000 petition by students at the École Normale Supérieure (France's premier institution of higher learning) protesting against the excessive mathematical formalisation of their curriculum and its neglect of economic realities. This petition received 1545 signatures and prompted the French Minister of Education to set up formal enquiry.

Krugman joins a line of Nobel Laureates, including Ronald Coase, Wassily Leontief and Milton Friedman, who have argued that economists has become largely transformed into a branch of applied mathematics, with inadequate contact with the real world. On the online website, Krugman’s words are supported by Nobel Laureate Douglass North.

The narrow training of economists – which concentrates on mathematical techniques and the building of empirically uncontrolled formal models – has been a major reason for the failure of the economics profession to appreciate market vulnerability and warn of the serious risks in the financial system. In their pursuit of tractable models, economists have made over-simplified and misguided assumptions concerning of human agents, markets and other institutions, rather than engaging adequately with the complexities of the real world.

Mathematics is very important and useful, but it should be a servant to economics, and not its master. Real-world substance should prevail over mathematical technique. To help avoid further failings, governments in the USA, Europe and elsewhere should look into the state of economics and the way economics is taught.

Of the 2000-plus signatories of the current online appeal, 62% have PhDs, 20% are from the USA, and 10% from the UK.

As well as Nobel Laureate Douglass North, other prominent signatories include leading international academics and researchers such as Masahiko Aoki, Tony Aspromourgos, Michael Bernstein, Margaret Blair, Mark Blaug, Daniel Bromley, John Cantwell, Ha-Joon Chang, Victoria Chick, Keith Cowling, Kurt Dopfer, Gregory Dow, Ronald Dore, Giovani Dosi, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Peter Earl, Jan Fagerberg, Olivier Favereau, Duncan Foley, John Foster, Geoffrey Harcourt, Arnold Heertje, Joseph Henrich, Stuart Holland, Will Hutton, Peter Kellner, Arjo Klamer, Mark Lavoie, Richard Lipsey, Brian Loasby, Mark Lutz, Ronald Martin, William McKelvey, Deirdre McCloskey, Stanley Metcalfe, Julie Nelson, Richard Norgaard, Luigi Pasinetti, Peter Richerson, Erik Reinert, Barkley Rosser, Kurt Rothschild, Bridget Rosewell, Robert Rowthorn, Malcolm Rutherford, Paolo Saviotti, Malcolm Sawyer, Esther-Mirjam Sent, Mark Setterfield, Gerald Silverberg, Laurence Shute, Robert Skidelsky, Peter Skott, Ronald Stanfield, Arthur Stinchcombe, Thomas Weisskopf, Sidney Winter and Stefano Zamagni.

All 2000-plus signatories endorse the following words by Paul Krugman:

"Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field’s problems. More important was the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy ... the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth ... economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets, this time gussied up with fancy equations ... Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets – especially financial markets – that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation. ... When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly." (New York Times, September 2nd, 2009.)

Additional supporters can sign the petition on
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/revitalizing_economics?e

(If you do not wish to make a contribution, then exist immediately when the web page changes.)

Ken Robinson

Canção

Porque é que o pão cai sempre com a manteiga para baixo