INTEGRAL - operating high-energy detectors for five years in space

The INTEGRAL satellite, which studies the Universe in the hard X-ray and soft Gamma-ray domain, has been operational for 5 years now. The X-ray telescopes, which use the coded mask technique, provide unprecedented spectral and imaging resolution. This led to a number of discoveries, such as the distribution of diffuse emission in the Galaxy, the discovery of highly absorbed sources and fast X-ray transients in the Galactic Plane, localization of ~50 Gamma-ray bursts, and the resolution of the cosmic X-ray background around its peak at 30 keV. About 300 previously known X-ray sources have been detected and in addition more than 200 new sources have been discovered. INTEGRAL provides spectra starting at 3 keV and ranging up to several hundred keV. This article gives a brief overview about the major discoveries of INTEGRAL.Comment: 10 pages. Invited review to appear in the proceedings of the 10th ICATPP conference, Como, Italy, October 8-12, 200

Age-Biased Technological and Organizational Change: Firm-Level Evidence and Management Implications

This paper examines the question, whether the growing use of new technologies and decentralized forms of work organization affects the age structure of workforces within firms. The initial idea behind this relationship is that technological and organizational change may not only be skill-biased, but also age-biased. Based on human capital theoretical explanations that mainly focus on skill obsolescence in association with the need to acquire new skills, the hypothesis of an age-biased technological and organizational change (ABTOC) is derived and tested econometrically using German firm-level data. The empirical results show that the adoption of technological and organizational innovations decreases the firms’ demand for older workers and increases the demand for younger workers. Hence, ABTOC is found to be at the expense of older workers. Since ABTOC does not fit to the current development in terms of age-specific labor supply, this paper also suggests human resource management practices that encourage firms to combine the use of new technologies and organizational forms with an ageing workforce.Ageing workforces, new technologies, decentralized work organization, skill obsolescence, skill adaptation, productivity-wage-differentials

How labour organization may affect technology adoption: an analytical framework analysing the case of integrated pest management

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an important component of sustainable agriculture. Farmers who switch from a more capital-intensive pesticide-based pest management strategy to IPM have to substitute capital with labour. The adoption of IPM will therefore depend, among other things, on the opportunity costs of labour. A simple model analyses the trade-off between IPM and current farmers' best practice in developing countries. Modifications of the model include different forms of labour organization in pest management, such as owner operated and short- and long-term labour contracts. The implications are that agricultural policies, environmental policies, and labour market policies can go hand in hand. Unfortunately, this will be more likely at a higher level of original pesticide use and hence a higher level of environmental costs