23 research outputs found

    Alpine Landgesellschaften zwischen Urbanisierung und Globalisierung

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    Dieses Open-Access-Buch bietet Einblicke in die Bandbreite agrar- und regional-soziologischer Forschung und eng verwandter Disziplinen in Österreich. Es widmet sich den vielfältigen Lebensrealitäten von Akteurinnen und Akteuren in ländlichen, insbesondere alpinen Regionen. Die Beiträge beleuchten Themen wie Wandlungsprozesse und Zukunftsperspektiven, Sozialkapital und Lebensqualität, Werthaltungen und Konsumpräferenzen sowie Landnutzung und Familienlandwirtschaft

    THREE ESSAYS ON GOVERNANCE, INEQUALITY, AND SOCIAL EQUITY

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    Comprised of three essays, my dissertation is linked by a common focus: the relationship between state or local governance arrangements and inequality or facets of social equity. I draw upon a range of literatures to motivate my research questions and inform my methodologies—welfare and social policy, public economics, intergovernmental relations, public finance and management. In the first essay, I ask: does localizing welfare governance impact geospatial access to the social safety net? This is an important question because proximity is highly salient to program utilization. I geocode the location of human services nonprofits from tax filings in eight states using ArcGIS and create measures of access for low-income neighborhoods over 17 years. I leverage the 1996 welfare reform, which enabled states to devolve more policymaking discretion to local governments, to examine the responsiveness of nonprofits to changes in welfare governance with respect to geospatial accessibility. One of my main findings is that low-income neighborhoods in states that chose to localize welfare had less access post-reform to program revenues, a proxy for government contracts and services. In the second essay, I study the relationship between state government wages and privatization. Governments have used public sector employment to support a variety of goals, including social equity and economic development, but privatization, as an NPM reform, may shift that focus. My empirical analysis shows that state privatization of service delivery is associated with decreases in the public sector wage premium, but that these effects are not driven by gender, race, or low levels of educational attainment. The quality of implementation conditions these effects. I also find that privatization is associated with a lower public sector wage premium for middle-class workers. In the third essay, I and a co-author leverage a 2003 Arkansas state law requiring school district reorganization via an enrollment cutoff to evaluate the effects of consolidations on rural communities’ population, number of schools, and property values using a propensity score matched difference-in-differences design. We estimate that the reform led to reductions in population, community schools, and property value assessments. We also find that communities with greater shares of racial minorities may have been disproportionately affected with respect to population loss

    The interplay between foreign direct investment, security and European integration by comparing Poland and Romania

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    This work investigates the factors that have led to Poland and Romania's different evolutionary paths during the process of accession to the EU, placing an emphasis on security concerns, foreign direct investment and the interplay between the two. We identify two sets of determinants of the accession process, one in the political sphere and one in the economic sphere. Each set of determinants, be it in the political or economic sphere, has the potential to constitute a vicious or a virtuous circle which includes the prospect of EU membership itself. Furthermore, each of these circles is self reinforcing and can reinforce the corresponding circle in the other sphere. Finally, political and economic elements of the circles considered here can constitute security concerns for each of the countries analysed, while FDI represents a main element of the economic circle. We find that until 1996 Romania has been trapped in a combination of two vicious circles in both the political and economic spheres, while Poland has benefited from a combination of two virtuous circles since 1993. We test the hypothesis that, by changing perceptions of security and enhancing FDI, the prospect of EU membership can break the vicious economic circle of high perceptions of insecurity, low FDI, slow reforms, poor prospects for EU integration and hence high perceptions of insecurity in which Romania has been trapped. This is achieved firstly by a qualitative comparative analysis between Poland and Romania with regard to the determinants of FDI and the nature of their security concerns. Secondly, an econometric model assesses the determinants of FDI in ten transition countries candidates for EU membership and in particular the role of security and European integration variables. Our results support the hypothesis that, by creating positive perceptions of security of the candidate countries (especially of poor reformers), the prospect of EU membership may enhance FDI, thus speeding up economic reforms, leading to full membership of the Union and hence positive perceptions of security.It also appears that the prospect of EU membership can lead to a virtuous circle in the economic sphere through providing motivation for economic reforms and through financial aid and its impact on foreign direct investment and economic reforms

    Conservation of different mechanisms of Hox cluster regulation within chordates

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    [eng] In this thesis we have covered the importance of finding underlying conservation events to better understand the regulatory mechanisms of important development orchestrators like the Hox cluster. As an example of these non-evident conservation, we have shown two cases, as described below. The first case studied, after developing a software able to detect homologous long noncoding RNAs by means of microsynteny analyses, is the conservation of Hotairm1 in Chordata. For assessing the homology of this lncRNA, first we had to identify the lncRNA fraction within the B. lanceolatum transcriptome. With a reliable lincRNA dataset, we used our pipeline, LincOFinder, to identify orthologs between human and amphioxus through microsynteny. After the identification of Hotairm1 as one of the lincRNAs with conserved microsynteny, we used Xenopus as a proxy to analyse the homologies in the expression and the function. We had to proceed this way due to the difficulties associated with the inhibition of genes in B. lanceolatum, and the unavailability of expression patterns for Hotairm1 in the bibliography. After we successfully characterised Hotairm1 expression in amphioxus and Xenopus, we injected morpholino oligonucleotides to target and inhibit the splicing of Hotairm1 to promote an isoform imbalance. Through the phenotype obtained and the performing of qPCRs, we were able to deduct the mechanism of Hotairm1 and successfully relate this mechanism with the one described in human cells. With all the data obtained we were able to strongly suggest that the amphioxus Hotairm1 is homologous to the Xenopus and human Hotairm1, thus being conserved in most of the lineages within chordates. The second case studied was the conservation of the regulation of the Hox cluster mediated by Cdx. When analysing the B. floridae knockouts of Cdx and Pdx obtained using the TALEN technique, we found a severe phenotype of the developing larvae in Cdx-/- and a mild phenotype in Pdx-/-. The Cdx-/- phenotype consisted in the disruption of posterior gut development, as well as an underdevelopment of the postanal tail, coupled with a non-opening anus. When looking at changes in the expression of the Hox cluster in this Cdx-/- embryos, we found collinear misregulation of the expressed Hox genes, with the most anterior Hox cluster genes upregulated, and the most posterior ones downregulated. This is very similar to findings seen in triple morpholino knockdowns of the Cdx genes in Xenopus, indicating that in both, Xenopus and amphioxus, Cdx is regulating the Hox cluster through a homologous mechanism

    The hierarchically mechanistic mind: an evolutionary systems theory of the human brain, cognition, and behavior

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    The purpose of this review was to integrate leading paradigms in psychology and neuroscience with a theory of the embodied, situated human brain, called the Hierarchically Mechanistic Mind (HMM). The HMM describes the brain as a complex adaptive system that functions to minimize the entropy of our sensory and physical states via action-perception cycles generated by hierarchical neural dynamics. First, we review the extant literature on the hierarchical structure of the brain. Next, we derive the HMM from a broader evolutionary systems theory that explains neural structure and function in terms of dynamic interactions across four nested levels of biological causation (i.e., adaptation, phylogeny, ontogeny, and mechanism). We then describe how the HMM aligns with a global brain theory in neuroscience called the free-energy principle, leveraging this theory to mathematically formulate neural dynamics across hierarchical spatiotemporal scales. We conclude by exploring the implications of the HMM for psychological inquiry

    World Congress Integrative Medicine & Health 2017: Part one

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    An explorative study on the development of a framework for the measurement of performance and trust

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    Based on literature, a theoretical model was developed for viable performance consisting of eight constructs whilst the trust model of Martins (2000) was used to measure four organisational trust constructs. Exploratory factor analysis was used to extract the constructs, and structural equation modelling was employed to validate the models against the data. An empirical model for viable performance resulted in a solution with seven constructs and organisational trust with five constructs. The two empirical models were unified into a model of viable performance and trust resulting in a measurement model where all 12 constructs were shown. Significant levels of internal consistency were measured. The resulting measurement model was tested for group differences, and no significant differences were found, indicating that the assessment can be used across different groups. It was concluded that the aim to construct and test an integrated and comprehensive theoretical framework of viable performance and trust was achieved and the resulting Viable Performances and Trust Indicator (VPTI) was validated as an assessment to be used across groups. Organisations can thus use the framework and VPTI assessment tool with confidence to assess performance and trust across different biographical groups. Future researchers can build on this exploratory study to refine the scales and apply the measurement model within the wider context of South Africa or as a globally accepted model.IndustriaI and Organisational PsychologyD. Litt. et Phil. (IndustriaI and Organisational Psychology
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