Task Organization, Human Capital and Wages in Moroccan Exporting Firms

We conduct a case study of the linkages of task organization, human capital accumulation and wages in Morocco, using matched worker-firm data for Electrical-mechanical and Textile-clothing industries. In order to integrate task organization into the interacting processes of workers’ training and remunerations, we use a recursive model, which is not rejected by our estimates: task organization influences on-the-job training that affects wages. Beyond sector and gender determinants, assignment of workers to tasks and on-the-job training is found to depend on former education and work experience in a broad sense. Meanwhile, participation in on-the-job training is stimulated by being assigned to a team, especially of textile sector and for well educated workers. Finally, task organization and on-the-job training are found to affect wages.Morocco, Wages, On-the-job training, Human capital, Task organization.

Complete addition laws on abelian varieties

We prove that under any projective embedding of an abelian variety A of dimension g, a complete system of addition laws has cardinality at least g+1, generalizing of a result of Bosma and Lenstra for the Weierstrass model of an elliptic curve in P^2. In contrast with this geometric constraint, we moreover prove that if k is any field with infinite absolute Galois group, then there exists, for every abelian variety A/k, a projective embedding and an addition law defined for every pair of k-rational points. For an abelian variety of dimension 1 or 2, we show that this embedding can be the classical Weierstrass model or embedding in P^15, respectively, up to a finite number of counterexamples for |k| less or equal to 5.Comment: 9 pages. Finale version, accepted for publication in LMS Journal of Computation and Mathematic

Random Dirichlet environment viewed from the particle in dimension d≥3d\ge 3

We consider random walks in random Dirichlet environment (RWDE) which is a special type of random walks in random environment where the exit probabilities at each site are i.i.d. Dirichlet random variables. On ${\mathbb Z}^d$, RWDE are parameterized by a 2d-uplet of positive reals called weights. In this paper, we characterize for $d\ge 3$ the weights for which there exists an absolutely continuous invariant probability for the process viewed from the particle. We can deduce from this result and from [27] a complete description of the ballistic regime for $d\ge 3$.Comment: 18 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1205.5709 by other authors without attributio

Evolution and Mirror Neurons. An Introduction to the Nature of Self-Consciousness

Self-consciousness is a product of evolution. Few people today disagree with the evolutionary history of humans. But the nature of self-consciousness is still to be explained, and the story of evolution has rarely been used as a framework for studies on consciousness during the 20th century. This last point may be due to the fact that modern study of consciousness came up at a time where dominant philosophical movements were not in favor of evolutionist theories (Cunningham 1996). Research on consciousness based on Phenomenology or on Analytic Philosophy has been mostly taking the characteristics of humans as starting points. Relatively little has been done with bottom-up approaches, using performances of animals as a simpler starting point to understand the generation of consciousness through evolution. But this status may be changing, thanks to new tools coming from recent discoveries in neurology. The discovery of mirror neurons about ten years ago (Gallese et al. 1996, Rizzolatti et al. 1996) has allowed the built up of new conceptual tools for the understanding of intersubjectivity within humans and non human primates (Gallese 2001, Hurley 2005). Studies in these fields are still in progress, with discussions on the level of applicability of this natural intersubjectivity to non human primates (Decety and Chaminade 2003). We think that these subject/conspecific mental relations made possible by mirror neurons can open new paths for the understanding of the nature of self-consciousness via an evolutionist bottom-up approach. We propose here a scenario for the build up of self-consciousness through evolution by a specific analysis of two steps of evolution: first step from simple living elements to non human primates comparable to chimpanzees, and second step from these non human primates to humans. We identify these two steps as representing the evolution from basic animal awareness to body self-awareness, and from body self-awareness to self-consciousness. (we consider that today non human primates are comparable to what were pre-human primates). We position body self-awareness as corresponding to the performance of mirror self recognition as identified with chimpanzees and orangutans (Gallup). We propose to detail and understand the content of this body self-awareness through a specific evolutionist build up process using the performances of mirror neurons and group life. We address the evolutionary step from body self-awareness to self-consciousness by complementing the recently proposed approach where self-consciousness is presented as a by-product of body self-awareness amplification via a positive feedback loop resulting of anxiety limitation (Menant 2004). The scenario introduced here for the build up of self-consciousness through evolution leaves open the question about the nature of phenomenal-consciousness (Block 2002). We plan to address this question later on with the help of the scenario made available here