Income Inequality and Trade Protection - Does the Sector Matter?

According to traditional trade theory, trade reduces inequality between the rich and the poor. However, since the beginning of the 1980s, a constantly rise in within-country inequality has been observed in many developed and developing countries. With the rapidly increasing globalization during the same period in mind, a natural question to ask is whether the two phenomenon are linked. In this paper I investigate the links between trade protection and inequality for a panel of 26 middle-income countries during the period 2000-2012. I additionally examine whether the level of protection in specific industries is of importance for the relationship. I do this by using both an OLS model and an FE model. I find no evidence for the effect of general protection on inequality, although general trade is found to reduce inequality. Further, I find the effect of sectorial protection on inequality to strongly depend on the industry and region that is being considered

Challenging Labour - Working Conditions in the Electronics Industry

The growing importance and availability of electronics products has transformed the lives of people around the globe. According to estimates by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), today one third of the world's population is using the Internet, the global penetration of mobile phone subscriptions has reached 87 % and 74 % of all households in developed countries and 25 % of households in developing countries own a computer (ITU 2011, 1-2). New information and communication technologies have the potential to connect people around the world, to facilitate communication and co-operation, to assist political protest and to foster participation as well as to alleviate work. However, at the same time the production of these electronics products often takes place under unacceptably burdensome conditions. This chapter aims to focus attention on the darker side of the electronics boom. It builds on the results of a number of empirical studies conducted by the European makeITfair project, which is presented below. In this chapter we provide insights into the working reality in the electronics manufacturing sector and points at specific challenges. Based on research results of the makeITfair project we argue that corporate self-regulation is unlikely to lead to sustainable improvements. By building a better understanding of the causes and effects of labour rights violations in the electronics production sector the project highlights the necessity for structural reforms. Fostering such long-term transformations requires raising awareness regarding labour rights, exposing corporate social irresponsibility, and increasing public pressure on corporations. This chapter makes an important contribution to that task. In the following we will give an overview of market leading companies in the sector (section 1) and introduce the makeITfair project (section 2). In the next section we briefly describe some common characteristics of four major electronics production countries (section 3), before we provide more detailed evidence regarding several work-related problems in the electronics manufacturing sector (section 4). Finally, in the conclusion we point towards some starting points for improving the situation of workers (section 5)

Towards goal-based autonomic networking

The ability to quickly deploy and efficiently manage services is critical to the telecommunications industry. Currently, services are designed and managed by different teams with expertise over a wide range of concerns, from high-level business to low level network aspects. Not only is this approach expensive in terms of time and resources, but it also has problems to scale up to new outsourcing and/or multi-vendor models, where subsystems and teams belong to different organizations. We endorse the idea, upheld among others in the autonomic computing community, that the network and system components involved in the provision of a service must be crafted to facilitate their management. Furthermore, they should help bridge the gap between network and business concerns. In this paper, we sketch an approach based on early work on the hierarchical organization of autonomic entities that possibly belong to different organizations. An autonomic entity governs over other autonomic entities by defining their goals. Thus, it is up to each autonomic entity to decide its line of actions in order to fulfill its goals, and the governing entity needs not know about the internals of its subordinates. We illustrate the approach with a simple but still rich example of a telecom service

Utbildning och ekonomisk tillväxt - en studie om utbildningens betydelse för Chiles ekonomiska tillväxt 1970-2010

Syftet med denna uppsats är att utreda vilken inverkan utbildning har haft på Chiles BNP per capita under perioden 1970-2010. Uppsatsen fokuserar på gymnasial- och eftergymnasial utbildning och dess inverkan på Chiles ekonomiska tillväxt. Metoden som används är tillväxtbokföring. Tillväxtbokföringen möjliggör en nedbrytning av produktionsfunktionen i syfte att finna varje variabels inverkan på tillväxten, och på så vis se vilken effekt utbildningen har haft under perioden. Det primära syftet med uppsatsen är att finna ett samband mellan högre utbildning och ekonomisk tillväxt i Chile, och av denna anledning studeras hur inskrivningar vid utbildningsinstitut, som fungerar som proxyvariabel för utbildningsdeltagande, påverkan på tillväxten. Studien ger inte något tydbart resultat för tillväxtbokföringen, men påvisar dock ett positivt samband mellan högre utbildning och ekonomisk tillväxt

Transient thermal model of a vehicle's cabin validated under variable ambient conditions

[EN] This paper presents a lumped-parameter thermal model of the passengers' compartment of a vehicle. The model is completely dynamic and has been thoroughly validated under variable ambient conditions including solar radiation. The proposed model reproduces accurately the warm-up and cool-down of the cabin and can help analyse capacity reduction actions for air-conditioning systems. In this study, the thermal loads have been calculated by means of the model. For the tested minibus in real outdoor conditions, air renewal represents from 7% up to 53% of the thermal load, while the solar radiation accounts for 18% 31%. According to the results, a decrease of 0.2 in the glazing transmissivity can lead to a 3.3% reduction of the installed cooling capacity.This work has been supported by the European Commission under the 7th European Community framework program as part of the ICE project "MagnetoCaloric Refrigeration for Efficient Electric Air-Conditioning", Grant Agreement no. 265434. B. Torregrosa-Jaime acknowledges the Spanish Education, Culture and Sport Ministry (Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte) for receiving the Research Fellowship FPU ref. AP2010-2160.Torregrosa Jaime, B.; Bjurling, F.; Corberán Salvador, JM.; Di Sciullo, F.; Payá Herrero, J. (2015). Transient thermal model of a vehicle's cabin validated under variable ambient conditions. Applied Thermal Engineering. 75:45-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2014.05.074S45537

Measuring serotonin synthesis: from conventional methods to PET tracers and their (pre)clinical implications

The serotonergic system of the brain is complex, with an extensive innervation pattern covering all brain regions and endowed with at least 15 different receptors (each with their particular distribution patterns), specific reuptake mechanisms and synthetic processes. Many aspects of the functioning of the serotonergic system are still unclear, partially because of the difficulty of measuring physiological processes in the living brain. In this review we give an overview of the conventional methods of measuring serotonin synthesis and methods using positron emission tomography (PET) tracers, more specifically with respect to serotonergic function in affective disorders. Conventional methods are invasive and do not directly measure synthesis rates. Although they may give insight into turnover rates, a more direct measurement may be preferred. PET is a noninvasive technique which can trace metabolic processes, like serotonin synthesis. Tracers developed for this purpose are α-[11C]methyltryptophan ([11C]AMT) and 5-hydroxy-L-[β-11C]tryptophan ([11C]5-HTP). Both tracers have advantages and disadvantages. [11C]AMT can enter the kynurenine pathway under inflammatory conditions (and thus provide a false signal), but this tracer has been used in many studies leading to novel insights regarding antidepressant action. [11C]5-HTP is difficult to produce, but trapping of this compound may better represent serotonin synthesis. AMT and 5-HTP kinetics are differently affected by tryptophan depletion and changes of mood. This may indicate that both tracers are associated with different enzymatic processes. In conclusion, PET with radiolabelled substrates for the serotonergic pathway is the only direct way to detect changes of serotonin synthesis in the living brain

Overview on Multienzymatic Cascades for the Production of Non-canonical α-Amino Acids

SM-R thanks the University of Granada for the support provided by project PPJI2017-1 and the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST Action CA15133). Authors are also grateful to the Andalusian Regional Government through Endocrinology & Metabolism Group (CTS-202).The 22 genetically encoded amino acids (AAs) present in proteins (the 20 standard AAs together with selenocysteine and pyrrolysine), are commonly referred as proteinogenic AAs in the literature due to their appearance in ribosome-synthetized polypeptides. Beyond the borders of this key set of compounds, the rest of AAs are generally named imprecisely as non-proteinogenic AAs, even when they can also appear in polypeptide chains as a result of post-transductional machinery. Besides their importance as metabolites in life, many of D-α- and L-α-“non-canonical” amino acids (NcAAs) are of interest in the biotechnological and biomedical fields. They have found numerous applications in the discovery of new medicines and antibiotics, drug synthesis, cosmetic, and nutritional compounds, or in the improvement of protein and peptide pharmaceuticals. In addition to the numerous studies dealing with the asymmetric synthesis of NcAAs, many different enzymatic pathways have been reported in the literature allowing for the biosynthesis of NcAAs. Due to the huge heterogeneity of this group of molecules, this review is devoted to provide an overview on different established multienzymatic cascades for the production of non-canonical D-α- and L-α-AAs, supplying neophyte and experienced professionals in this field with different illustrative examples in the literature. Whereas the discovery of new or newly designed enzymes is of great interest, dusting off previous enzymatic methodologies by a “back and to the future” strategy might accelerate the implementation of new or improved multienzymatic cascades.University of Granada PPJI2017-1European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) CA15133Andalusian Regional Government through Endocrinology & Metabolism Group CTS-20

Begreppslådor i kemiundervisningen

Detta examensarbete handlar om att utveckla några begreppslådor att använda i kemiundervisningen för att få eleverna att diskutera, observera och experimentera kring olika kemiska begrepp. Begreppslådorna har utformats från de olika, av litteraturen beskrivna, svårigheter och missuppfattningar som eleverna kan tänkas ha. Målet med undervisningssituationen har varit att få eleverna att under grupparbetet diskutera och med hjälp av varandra lära sig de olika kemiska begreppen. Fokus i arbetet har dels varit utvecklingen av lådorna och dels undersöka hur eleverna upplever användandet av lådorna i undervisningen. Tre begreppslådor har utvecklats: en om molbegreppet, en om redoxreaktioner och en om syra/bas-reaktioner. Empiriska undersökningar har gjorts främst genom enkäter, men några elevintervjuer och deltagande observationer har också gjorts. Enkäten delades ut på lektionen efter att redoxlådan genomförts och intervjuerna gjordes också i anslutningen till det undervisningstillfället. I enkäterna svarade 75 % av eleverna att de tyckte att övningarna i redox-lådan hade hjälpt dem förstå redoxbegreppet och hälften av eleverna tyckte att fler sådana övningar skulle hjälpa dem att förstå kemiska begrepp bättre

Didaktiska val vid planering av SO-undervisning i årskurs F-3 : - Lärarens urval av kunskapsinnehåll och arbetsmetod för elevers lärande

Läraryrket är enligt forskning ett kravfyllt och komplext arbete, dels eftersom det finns ett stort valutrymme för lärarna att göra olika prioriteringar och didaktiska val för sin undervisning, dels för att de samtidigt behöver ta hänsyn till de olika villkor för undervisningen som ställs på dem. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur lågstadielärare väljer innehåll och arbetsformer i de samhällsorienterande ämnena (SO). Det undersöks i studien vilka aspekter av lärande som kan urskiljas i lärarnas didaktiska val genom kvalitativa intervjuer med fyra lärare som har olika arbetslivserfarenheter. Resultatet i studien visar både likheter och skillnader i lärarnas didaktiska val. Likheterna som uppfattas i det empiriskt insamlade materialet är att lärarna utgår från elevernas behov och olika sätt att lära sig när de berättar om sina val för undervisningen. Skillnaderna yttrar sig i att lärare för de yngre åldrarna fokuserar mer på relationsbyggande med den etiska och kognitiva aspekten i fokus, medan lärare med äldre elever fokuserar mer på att lyssna och samarbeta genom den sociala aspekten. Detta är inte samstämmigt med tidigare forskning. Studiens resultat visar att lärarna prioriterar olika när de gör sina didaktiska val och vilka aspekter av lärande de betonar för undervisningen. Lärarnas val kan påverka elevernas möjlighet att nå kunskapsmålen samtidigt som det framgår att lärarna i studien strävar efter att ge eleverna möjligheter till en likvärdig utbildning