Determinants of Desired Career Paths among Canadian Engineers

The goal of this research is to study five career paths available to engineers and to understand what leads them to prefer the management path to other career path possibilities (i.e. the technical path, the project-based path, the entrepreneurial path, and the hybrid path). A questionnaire survey was conducted using a sample of 900 male and female engineers from a large Canadian province. The0501n results show that several determinants under study (mainly individual-related factors, such as career anchors and education) effectively distinguish engineers who want to pursue a management path from those who choose other career paths, especially technical ones Cette recherche vise à étudier six orientations que les ingénieurs peuvent vouloir donner à leur carrière et à comprendre ce qui les amène à privilégier certains choix de carrière. Les possibilités de carrière retenues sont la voie de gestion, la voie technique, la voie de projet, la voie entreprenieuriale, la voie hybride et une nouvelle carrière. Une enquête par questionnaire a été réalisée auprès de 900 ingénieurs à travers le Québec, dont 403 femmes. Les résultats démontrent principalement que plusieurs des facteurs étudiés (principalement les facteurs individuels comme les ancres de carrière et la scolarité) permettent de distinguer efficacement les ingénieurs qui désirent poursuivre une carrière en gestion de ceux qui aspirent à d'autres voies de carrière.Engineers, career, career path, entrepreneurial career, career anchor, Ingénieurs, carrière, voies de carrière, changement de carrière

The distribution of "time of flight" in three dimensional stationary chaotic advection

The distributions of "time of flight" (time spent by a single fluid particle between two crossings of the Poincar\'e section) are investigated for five different 3D stationary chaotic mixers. Above all, we study the large tails of those distributions, and show that mainly two types of behaviors are encountered. In the case of slipping walls, as expected, we obtain an exponential decay, which, however, does not scale with the Lyapunov exponent. Using a simple model, we suggest that this decay is related to the negative eigenvalues of the fixed points of the flow. When no-slip walls are considered, as predicted by the model, the behavior is radically dfferent, with a very large tail following a power law with an exponent close to -3

Local Equivalence and Intrinsic Metrics between Reeb Graphs

As graphical summaries for topological spaces and maps, Reeb graphs are common objects in the computer graphics or topological data analysis literature. Defining good metrics between these objects has become an important question for applications, where it matters to quantify the extent by which two given Reeb graphs differ. Recent contributions emphasize this aspect, proposing novel distances such as {\em functional distortion} or {\em interleaving} that are provably more discriminative than the so-called {\em bottleneck distance}, being true metrics whereas the latter is only a pseudo-metric. Their main drawback compared to the bottleneck distance is to be comparatively hard (if at all possible) to evaluate. Here we take the opposite view on the problem and show that the bottleneck distance is in fact good enough {\em locally}, in the sense that it is able to discriminate a Reeb graph from any other Reeb graph in a small enough neighborhood, as efficiently as the other metrics do. This suggests considering the {\em intrinsic metrics} induced by these distances, which turn out to be all {\em globally} equivalent. This novel viewpoint on the study of Reeb graphs has a potential impact on applications, where one may not only be interested in discriminating between data but also in interpolating between them

Sliced Wasserstein Kernel for Persistence Diagrams

Persistence diagrams (PDs) play a key role in topological data analysis (TDA), in which they are routinely used to describe topological properties of complicated shapes. PDs enjoy strong stability properties and have proven their utility in various learning contexts. They do not, however, live in a space naturally endowed with a Hilbert structure and are usually compared with specific distances, such as the bottleneck distance. To incorporate PDs in a learning pipeline, several kernels have been proposed for PDs with a strong emphasis on the stability of the RKHS distance w.r.t. perturbations of the PDs. In this article, we use the Sliced Wasserstein approximation SW of the Wasserstein distance to define a new kernel for PDs, which is not only provably stable but also provably discriminative (depending on the number of points in the PDs) w.r.t. the Wasserstein distance $d_1$ between PDs. We also demonstrate its practicality, by developing an approximation technique to reduce kernel computation time, and show that our proposal compares favorably to existing kernels for PDs on several benchmarks.Comment: Minor modification

Statistical Analysis and Parameter Selection for Mapper

In this article, we study the question of the statistical convergence of the 1-dimensional Mapper to its continuous analogue, the Reeb graph. We show that the Mapper is an optimal estimator of the Reeb graph, which gives, as a byproduct, a method to automatically tune its parameters and compute confidence regions on its topological features, such as its loops and flares. This allows to circumvent the issue of testing a large grid of parameters and keeping the most stable ones in the brute-force setting, which is widely used in visualization, clustering and feature selection with the Mapper.Comment: Minor modification

Nowcasting With Google Trends in an Emerging Market

Most economic variables are released with a lag, making it difficult for policy-makers to make an accurate assessment of current conditions. This paper explores whether observing Internet browsing habits can inform practitioners about real-time aggregate consumer behavior in an emerging market. Using data on Google search queries, we introduce a simple index of interest in automobile purchases in Chile and test whether it improves the fit and efficiency of nowcasting models for automobile sales. We also examine to what extent our index helps us identify turning points in sales data. Despite relatively low rates of Internet usage among the population, we find that models incorporating our Google Trends Automotive Index outperform benchmark specifications in both in-sample and outof- sample nowcasts while providing substantial gains in information delivery times.

Predictors of Hierarchical Success for Male and Female Canadian Managers

The purpose of this research is to identify the predictors of hierarchical success for 3,067 male and female managers. Variables were drawn from five bodies of research perspectives that are frequently used to explain career advancement: human capital theory, socioeconomic origin, family context, work/life values, and structural factors. Results of this study suggest that the career success of men and women is predicted by different variables. Le but de cette recherche est d'identifier les déterminants du succès hiérarchique chez 3 067 cadres masculins et féminins. Les variables ont été puisées au sein de cinq cadres théoriques fréquemment utilisés pour expliquer l'avancement dans une carrière : la théorie du capital humain, l'origine socio-économique, le contexte familial, les valeurs sociales et du travail ainsi que les facteurs structurels. Les résultats de cette étude suggèrent que le succès de carrière des hommes et des femmes est déterminé par des variables différentes.Career, success, hierarchy, women, Carrière, succès, hiérarchie, femmes

The Moderating Effect of Job Characteristics on Managers' Reactions to Career Plateau

This study analyzes the impact of career plateau and job characteristics on people's attitudes or behaviors, but it also extends the traditional field of research on career plateau by taking into account the influence of factors linked to job characteristics on the relationship between career plateau and work-related attitudes. Our results show that subjective career plateau, job enrichment potential, role ambiguity and participation in decision making are related to various individual attitudes and behaviors. The impact of career plateau on these variables varies according to job enrichment potential, participation in decision making and role ambiguity. Although these direct and moderating effects are only significant for some of the facets of job satisfaction and behavior, it appears that these job characteristics can contribute to limit the negative consequences associated with career plateau. Cette recherche analyse l'impact du plateau de carrière et des caractéristiques de l'emploi sur les attitudes et les comportements,0501s aussi élargie les recherches traditionnelles sur le plateau de carrière en prenant en compte l'influence des facteurs liés aux caractéristiques des emplois sur la relation entre le plateau de carrière et les attitudes reliées au travail. Nos résultats montrent que le plateau subjectif , le potentiel d'enrichissement du travail, l'ambiguité de rôle et la participation à la prise de décisions sont reliés aux diverses attitudes et comportements. L'impact du plateau de carrière sur ces attitudes est modéré par le potentiel d'enrichissement de l'emploi, la participation à la prise de décision et l'ambiguité de rôle. Quoi que les effets directs et modérateurs sont significatifs pour seulement quelques facettes de la satisfaction au travail, il apparaît que ces caractéristiques de l'emploi peuvent contribuer à limiter les conséquences négatives associées au plateau de carrière.Career plateau, role ambiguity, job enrichment, participation in decision making, job satisfaction, Plateau de carrière, ambiguïté de rôle, enrichissement de l'emploi, participation à la prise de décision, satisfaction de l'emploi

The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks in Emerging Economies

A recent strand of research proposes that sudden jumps in uncertainty generate rapid drops and recoveries in real macroeconomic variables that drive the business cycle. Using an empirical model, we find substantial heterogeneity in the reactions to these shocks across countries. In comparison to the U.S. and other developed countries, emerging economies suffer much more severe falls in investment and private consumption following an exogenous uncertainty shock, take significantly longer to recover, and do not experience a subsequent overshoot in activity. We provide evidence that the dynamics of investment and consumption are correlated with the depth of financial markets. Once we control for the potential role of credit constraints, we find that investment and consumption dynamics in emerging economies are similar to those in developed economies. In this context, monetary and fiscal policy actions that alleviate the impact of credit constraints facing firms and households may reduce the impact of uncertainty shocks in these economies.

Managerial Career Success in Canadian Organizations: Is Gender a Determinant?

This study examines the influence of gender on four objective aspects of career success. After controlling human capital, family context, socioeconomic origin, values and motovations, as well as structural variables, gender continues to have an effect on two of the four aspects: salary and hierarchical level. Cette étude analyse l'influence du sexe des gestionnaires sur quatre mesures objectives du succès de carrière. Après avoir contrôlé le capital humain, le contexte familial, l'origine socio-économique, les valeurs et motivations et les variables structurelles, le fait d'être un homme ou une femme continue d'exercer un effet sur deux des quatre mesures utilisées : le niveau de salaire et le niveau hiérarchique.Career, success, gender, managers, Carrière, succès, femmes, gestionnaires