Mandatory severance pay : its coverage and effects in Peru

In Peru, as in many other developing countries, employers have the legal obligation to compensate workers who are dismissed through no fault of their own. Is this an efficient mechanism for providing income support to the unemployed? The authors seek an answer to this question, using individual records from a household survey with a panel structure. Relying on five coverage indicators, they show that roughly one in five workers in the private sector, and one in three wage earners in the private sector, is legally entitled to severance pay. Coverage is more prevalent among wealthier workers. Results based on several empirical strategies suggest that workers"pay"for their entitlement to severance pay through lower wages. Consumption among unemployed workers who receive severance pay is 20 to 30 percent greater than among those who do not. Consumption among these workers is actually higher than consumption among employed workers, suggesting that mandatory severance pay is overgenerous in Peru.Public Health Promotion,Labor Policies,Social Protections&Assistance,Wages, Compensation&Benefits,Environmental Economics&Policies,Wages, Compensation&Benefits,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Social Protections&Assistance,Inequality

Leadership then at all events

Theory purporting to identify leadership remains over-determined by one of two underlying fallacies. Traditionally, it hypostatizes leadership in psychological terms so that it appears as the collection of attributes belonging to an independent, discrete person. By contrast, contemporary perspectives approach leadership by focusing on the intermediary relations between leaders and followers. We retreat from both of these conceptions. Our approach perceives these terms as continuous within each other and not merely as adjacent individuals. The upshot is that leadership should be understood as a more fundamental type of relatedness, one that is glimpsed in the active process we are here calling events. We suggest further work consistent with these ideas offers an innovative and useful line of inquiry, both by extending our theoretical understanding of leadership, but also because of the empirical challenges such a study invites.

Ethnocentrism and Internal Compensation Structuring: An Experimental Examination of Point Factor Job Evaluation

“Comparable Worth” represents the concept that men, women, minorities, and whites should receive equal pay for work of equal value from their employer. Much research and many articles have been written in regards to overall pay inequities between men and women; however information regarding internal compensation strategies and perceived labor pools (percentage of minority applicants) has not been explored in depth. A total of 381 individuals participated in an experimental study that manipulated perceived labor market composition in order to establish the relative impact of ethnocentrism on the evaluation of compensable factors and salary. Results strongly supported the authors’ hypotheses, indicating that (a) significant discriminatory weighing of compensable factors by the perceived ethnicity and gender of labor pools occurs, (b) individual participant demographics (ethnicity and gender) contribute significantly to discrimination between perceived labor pools, and (c) participant individual differences significantly contribute to discriminatory weighting. Implications and directions for future research are considered.Compensation; Ethnocentrism; Internal Structure; Point Factor; Labor Pool; Discrimination; Social; Bias

The role of histidine in the mechanism of iron release from human serum transferrin

The role of non-coordinated histidines in the iron release mechanism of human serum transferrin has been investigated by chemical modification of the protein with ethoxyformic anhydride and aquopentaamine ruthenium(II), reagents specific for histidines under mild conditions. Kinetic studies of the iron release reaction at pH 5 under the action of different mediators e.g., PPi, Pi, Cit, ATP, GTP, and DPG, show that ethoxyformic anhydride imparts increased stability to the protein with rate constants for the C-terminal site decreased by factors from 2 to 10. The largest effects were seen with intracellular iron chelators GTP and DPG. A protonated imidazole group near the metal perhaps serves as a binding site for the triphosphate chelators. The binding of such chelators to a nearby histidine may assist in the formation of a quaternary intermediate of the type Chel-Fe-Transferrin-HCO\sb3 prior to release of iron. Modification using aquopentaamine ruthenium(II) a reagent for surface accessible histidine residues, enhances the rate of release from the N-terminal site but has no effect the C-terminal site. The Tsou Chen-Lu statistical method used to analyze the rate data suggests the involvement of two histidines in the N-terminal lobe not conserved in the C-terminal lobe. These results may explain the kinetic liability of the N-terminal site relative to the C-terminal site in acidic solutions. The distance between the metal site and nearby histidines was calculated from fluorescence energy transfer measurements using Tb(III) in the iron(III) binding site as the donor and pentaamine ruthenium(III) modified histidines as the acceptor chromophore. The fluorescence measurements imply two histidines in each lobe are responsible for quenching of the Tb(III) emission. Using upper and lower limits for the index of refraction and quantum yield and assuming the energy transfer follows parallel first order kinetics, a donor-acceptor distance between 1.32 nm and 1.42 nm was obtained

Comparison of Self- and Significant Other-rated Expression of Anger Using the MAD-AS and the SO-MAD-AS

The present study proposed to advance the treatment of anger disorders by exploring the psychometric properties of the MAD-AS scale, an anger assessment tool. Research sought to build on prior investigation of the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the MAD-AS in an inpatient setting by examining this measure using outpatient subjects. Several important findings were obtained in this study. Research results suggest that the MAD-AS represents a significant improvement over some existing anger measures in terms of its brevity, ease of administration, and standardization of scoring. The MAD-AS appears to possess sound psychometric properties in terms of its reliability and validity. Findings indicate that the MAD-AS scales reflect the multidimensional quality of anger, measuring anger\u27s cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components. These characteristics suggest its potential usefulness in diverse settings. The MAD-AS may function in research contexts as a valuable aid in the screening of participants. In clinical work, the MAD-AS can assist in identifying symptoms, choosing interventions, monitoring treatment, and evaluating outcomes

Development and construct validation of Lane\u27s (1989) attitudes toward the elderly scale extending Fazio\u27s process model of attitude-behaviour correspondence

The purpose of this study was twofold: to extend Fazio’s (1986) model of attitude-behaviour correspondence within the context of attitudes toward the elderly, and to further develop Lane’s (1989) Attitudes Toward the Elderly Scale (ATES) and assess its construct validity. In the first phase, 452 introductory students completed a modified version of Lane’s (1989) ATES, a measure of experience with the elderly, and Snyder’s (1974) Self-Monitoring Scale. During phase 2, six weeks later, participants evaluated a job candidate to investigate how the moderating variables of self-monitoring, salience, direct experience, and situational cues maximized or minimized attitude-behaviour correspondence. A total of 96 high and low self-monitors were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions. In three conditions, namely attitude salience, contrary situational cues, and a control group, participants evaluated an elderly job target (age=61). The fourth condition involved a young target (age=31) to serve as a baseline for assessing bias toward the elderly. Participants listened to an audiotape of a job interview and then evaluated the job candidate, who was the target person. The dependent measures of competence liking, recognition memory, memory bias, and social distance were aggregated. Participants also rated how typical the target person was viewed to be for his age. Factor analysis of the modified ATES resulted in two correlated factors that were combined. As predicted there was a modest overall attitude—behaviour correlation (r=.20, p\u3c.05), a stronger correlation for only low self-monitors (r=.38, p\u3c.05), and a nonsignificant correlation for high self-monitors. As predicted there was substantial attitude-behaviour correspondence in the elderly target control for low (r=.76, p\u3c0.5) but not for high self-monitors. Typicality was an important predictor for low but not high self-monitors which suggested a refinement of Fazio’s (1986) model. Contrary situational cues resulted in no attitude-behaviour correspondence which provided further support for Fazio’s model. Salience resulted in significant attitude-behaviour correspondence for high (r=.60, p\u3c.05) but not low self-monitors. Finally, there was no evidence of bias, either favourable or unfavourable, toward the elderly. Results were discussed in terms of both a refinement and extension of Fazio’s model; self-monitoring was a crucial moderating variable and the model predicted the conditions under which attitude-behaviour correspondence would occur within the context of attitude toward the elderly. The results demonstrated that the modified ATES was a valid and reliable measure of attitudes toward the elderly

A Peek at Your President

She wears red pajamas with an overall pattern of tiny black feet; she goes so far as to dress western style and stage a holdup, just to sell Veishea coupon books; and she claims her hand knitted sox are now walking all over the country

Initiation and growth of embryogenic callus and suspension cultures of Zea mays L.

Somatic embryos formed from immature embryos of maize under certain defined conditions can give rise to embryogenic callus and suspension cultures. Both embryogenic callus and suspension cultures of Zea mays have been examined in this study;Two pathways of somatic embryogenesis have been identified from immature embryos plated on callus inducing medium. Embryos from corn inbred line H99 demonstrate the presence of a generalized area of meristematic tissue in the subepidermal region of the scutellum, indicative of a multicellular origin for the somatic embryos. This is in agreement with observations reported previously in the literature. In contrast, embryos of a G35 x B73 hybrid develop distinct, small groups of meristematic cells that seem to be isolated from the remainder of the scutellar cells. These groups of cells appear to originate from single cells of the epithelial layer;The growth characteristics of suspension cultures derived from embryogenic callus cultures of two maize genotypes, B73 and B73 \u3c 2G35, were studied. These cultures varied in the relationship between the size of the cell clusters and the mitotic index of the culture. For the B73 line, the mitotic index was positively correlated to the average cell cluster size, while suspension cultures of B73 \u3c 2G35 demonstrated a negative correlation. It is unlikely that these observed differences are due to genotype alone;These studies clearly establish that the growth characteristics of embryogenic cultures are highly dependent upon the genotype of the maize line being used. An understanding of the growth patterns of a particular genotype is useful in the selection of a method for utilization of the culture in in vitro selection and transformation studies

Irreducible subgroups of algebraic groups

A closed subgroup of a semisimple algebraic group G is said to be G‐irreducible if it lies in no proper parabolic subgroup of G. We prove a number of results concerning such subgroups. Firstly they have only finitely many overgroups in G; secondly, with some specified exceptions, there exist G‐irreducible subgroups of type A1; and thirdly, we prove an embedding theorem for G‐irreducible subgroup