Strategic Behavior in the German Balancing Energy Mechanism: Incentives, Evidence, Costs and Solutions

This paper investigates the incentives market participants have in the German electricity balancing mechanism. Strategic over- and undersupply positions are the result of existing stochastic arbitrage opportunities between the spot market and the balancing mechanism. This strategic behavior can be clearly identified in aggregate market data. These structural imbalances increase the need for reserve capacity, raise system security concerns, and thus burden significant cost on the customers. More effective market designs include changes in the balancing mechanism, the reserve capacity and the intraday spot markets

Social Security, Labour Market and Restructuring: Current Situation and Expected Outcomes of Reforms

The paper focuses on the social safety nets in Russian Federation and Ukraine in the view of changes on the labour market since the beginning of economic transition. We showed that many past phenomena (e.g. restructuring of the economy, wage and pension arrears, new groups at-risk-of-poverty, demographic transition) caused a need to change an old type social safety net (SSN) into the new one, better adapted to emerging more liberal economy problems. Additionally, we analysed some gender specific issues related to social security that are caused mainly by inequalities in the labour market. Differences of earnings between men and women in Russia caused by sector segregation account for seem to be more important than the gap between gender earnings attributed to the position. In Ukraine the main contributors to gross gender differential of log earnings (that equals to 32%) explained by our model are sector segregation and occupation. We also pointed out to future policy challenges in the area of social security systems in both countries. The retirement reforms introduced recently are a step in the right direction, although their impact will not be felt for a number of years. Other reforms, with more immediate results, are necessary. Social safety nets should be made more efficient and social benefits should be better targeted

Peningkatan Kompetensi Sumber Daya Manusia (SDM) Guru di Kota Palembang pada Era Adaptasi Kebiasaan Baru

Pada era adaptasi kebiasaan baru, sistem pengajaran di sekolah berubah dari sistem luring (luar jaringan) menjadi sistem daring (dalam jaringan). Saat ini teknologi merupakan media utama untuk melakukan kegiatan pengajaran. Perubahan yang terjadi pada sistem pengajaran ini terjadi dengan cepat sehingga sebagian besar guru tidak siap dalam menghadapi Perubahan tersebut. Sementara itu, guru dituntut untuk memiliki kompetensi karena kompetensi tersebut akan berhubungan dengan proses belajar mengajar dan hasil belajar siswa. Tujuan dari kegiatan pengabdian kepada masyarakat ini adalah untuk mengetahui cara peningkatan kompetensi guru SMA di Kota Palembang dalam melakukan pengajaran khususnya yang berkaitan dengan penggunaan teknologi informasi pada era adaptasi kebiasaan baru. Metode pelaksanaan kegiatan pengabdian ini dengan cara sosialisasi melalui presentasi dan diskusi interaktif. Khalayak sasaran kegiatan ini adalah guru SMA di Kota Palembang sebanyak 25 orang. Hasil dari kegiatan pengabdian masyarakat ini adalah adanya peningkatan pemahaman guru terhadap pentingnya penguasaan kompetensi pada era adaptasi kebiaasaan baru khususnya kompetensi yang berkaitan dengan penggunaan teknologi informasi dimana saat ini sistem pengajaran lebih banyak menggunakan sistem daring

Pseudohyphal Regulation by the Transcription Factor Rfg1p in Candida albicans▿

The opportunistic human fungal pathogen Candida albicans is a major cause of nosocomial infections. One of the fundamental features of C. albicans pathogenesis is the yeast-to-hypha transition. Hypha formation is controlled positively by transcription factors such as Efg1p and Cph1p, which are required for hyphal growth, and negatively by Tup1p, Rfg1p, and Nrg1p. Previous work by our group has shown that modulating NRG1 gene expression, hence altering morphology, is intimately linked to the capacity of C. albicans to cause disease. To further dissect these virulence mechanisms, we employed the same strategy to analyze the role of Rfg1p in filamentation and virulence. Studies using a tet-RFG1 strain revealed that RFG1 overexpression does not inhibit hypha formation in vitro or in the mouse model of hematogenously disseminated candidiasis. Interestingly, RFG1 overexpression drives formation of pseudohyphae under yeast growth conditions—a phenotype similar to that of C. albicans strains with mutations in one of several mitotic regulatory genes. Complementation assays and real-time PCR analysis indicate that, although the morphology of the tet-RFG1 strain resembles that of the mitotic regulator mutants, Rfg1p overexpression does not impact expression of these genes