Informal Jobs and Trade Liberalisation in Argentina

Rapid trade liberalisation can exert profound effects on labour markets. Domestic firms, to sustain competitiveness for survival, could react through cutting labour benefits to achieve cost reductions. Alternatively, trade liberalisation may alter the industry composition of firms changing the aggregate formality rates. This paper studies the relationship between trade liberalisation and informality in Argentina. Using manufacturing industry-level data for 1992-2003, the results confirm the hypothesis that trade increases informality in industries that experience sudden foreign competition. This explains about a third of the increase in informality. Sectors with higher investment ratios are able to neutralize and reverse this effect

On Nilcompactifications of Prime Spectra of Commutative Rings

Given a ring R and S one of its ideals, we obtain a compactification of the prime spectrum of S through a mainly algebraic process. We name it the R-nilcompactification of SpecS. We study some categorical properties of this construction.Comment: 12 pages, 8 Tikz figure

Non-integrability of the Armbruster-Guckenheimer-Kim quartic Hamiltonian through Morales-Ramis theory

We show the non-integrability of the three-parameter Armburster-Guckenheimer-Kim quartic Hamiltonian using Morales-Ramis theory, with the exception of the three already known integrable cases. We use Poincar\'e sections to illustrate the breakdown of regular motion for some parameter values.Comment: Accepted for publication in SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems. Adapted version for arxiv with 19 pages and 11 figure

Caseload midwifery in a multi-ethnic community: The women's experiences

Objective: To evaluate caseload midwifery in a relatively deprived and ethnically diverse inner-city area. Design and setting: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 24 women from diverse ethnic backgrounds, 12 of whom had received caseload care and 12 women from an adjacent area who had received conventional maternity care in a large inner-city maternity unit. Framework analysis was adopted drawing on links with the authors’ previous work on women’s views of caseload midwifery. Findings: Key themes from previous work fitted well with the themes that emerged from this study. Themes included ‘knowing and being known’, ‘person-centred care’, ‘social support’, ‘gaining trust and confidence’, ‘quality and sensitivity of care’ and ‘communication’. Key conclusions and implications: Women from this socially and ethnically diverse group of women had similar views and wanted similar care to those in previous studies of caseload midwifery. Many of the women receiving caseload care highlighted the close relationship they had with the midwives and as a result of thisfelt more able to discuss their concerns with them. This has the potential not only for improved quality of care but also improved safety

Observations of Cavitation on a Three-Dimensional Oscillating Hydrofoil

A test apparatus was designed and constructed to observe the effect of sinusoidal pitching oscillations on the cavitation of three-dimensional hydrofoils. The apparatus is capable of oscillating hydrofoils at a rate up to 50 Hz and provides for adjustments in oscillation amplitude and mean angle of attack. Observations of the effect of pitching oscillation on cavitation have been made for a NACA 64-309 (modified) hydrofoil operating at its designed mean angle of attack of 7 degrees with an oscillation amplitude of 2 degrees. Photographs illustrating the interaction between natural cavity shedding frequencies and the foil reduced frequency are included

A dynamic Bayesian nonlinear mixed-effects model of HIV response incorporating medication adherence, drug resistance and covariates

HIV dynamic studies have contributed significantly to the understanding of HIV pathogenesis and antiviral treatment strategies for AIDS patients. Establishing the relationship of virologic responses with clinical factors and covariates during long-term antiretroviral (ARV) therapy is important to the development of effective treatments. Medication adherence is an important predictor of the effectiveness of ARV treatment, but an appropriate determinant of adherence rate based on medication event monitoring system (MEMS) data is critical to predict virologic outcomes. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of a number of summary determinants of MEMS adherence rates on virologic response measured repeatedly over time in HIV-infected patients. We developed a mechanism-based differential equation model with consideration of drug adherence, interacted by virus susceptibility to drug and baseline characteristics, to characterize the long-term virologic responses after initiation of therapy. This model fully integrates viral load, MEMS adherence, drug resistance and baseline covariates into the data analysis. In this study we employed the proposed model and associated Bayesian nonlinear mixed-effects modeling approach to assess how to efficiently use the MEMS adherence data for prediction of virologic response, and to evaluate the predicting power of each summary metric of the MEMS adherence rates.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS376 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Secondary pattern computation of an arbitrarily shaped main reflector

The secondary pattern of a perfectly conducting offset main reflector being illuminated by a point feed at an arbitrary location was studied. The method of analysis is based upon the application of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to the aperture fields obtained using geometrical optics (GO) and geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD). Key features of the reflector surface is completely arbitrary, the incident field from the feed is most general with arbitrary polarization and location, and the edge diffraction is calculated by either UAT or by UTD. Comparison of this technique for an offset parabolic reflector with the Jacobi-Bessel and Fourier-Bessel techniques shows good agreement. Near field, far field, and scan data of a large reflector are presented

Silent walkie-talkie: A Toy for deaf children

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