L'arbitre de griefs, instrument efficace de contrôle des abus de pouvoirs de l'employeur ?

In theory, recourse to the grievance arbitration would appear to be an efficient means of controlling the abuse of powers (i.e. violations of the collective agreement) by the employer. Indeed, experience has borne out the truth of this affirmation. Mainly due to the management rights principle however, there still remain several important lacunae in this regard. On the one hand, by invoking the so-called management rights principle as a favorite means for circumscribing the arbitrator's jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of Canada has greatly diminished the efficacy of the arbitration process. This has occured primarily through the quashing of arbitration decisions either on the basis of error of law or else by limiting the arbitrator's discretion in disciplinary cases. On the other hand, it would be just as harmful to the efficiency of the arbitration process if arbitrators themselves were to abuse the management rights principle in interpreting and applying collective agreements. In general, arbitrators have proved to be highly conscious of this problem. By the same token, arbitrators have been faced with the problem of whether or not to discipline acts of insubordination even though employees may have been provoked by an abuse of authority on the part of the employer. All in all, arbitrators, by their attitude, appear to manifest a desire of ensuring the efficient functioning of the arbitration process, without acting to the detriment of management rights. In this regard, the Supreme Court of Canada, with the notable exception of Chief Justice Laskin, would seem to be fighting a rear-guard action by continually emphasizing management rights

Adding SALT to Coupled Microcavities: the making of active photonic molecule lasers

A large body of work has accumulated over the years in the study of the optical properties of single and coupled microcavities for a variety of applications, ranging from filters to sensors and lasers. The focus has been mostly on the geometry of individual resonators and/or on their combination in arrangements often referred to as photonic molecules (PMs). Our primary concern will be the lasing properties of PMs as ideal candidates for the fabrication of integrated microlasers, photonic molecule lasers. Whereas most calculations on PM lasers have been based on cold-cavity (passive) modes, i.e. quasi-bound states, a recently formulated steady-state ab initio laser theory (SALT) offers the possibility to take into account the spectral properties of the underlying gain transition, its position and linewidth, as well as incorporating an arbitrary pump profile. We will combine two theoretical approaches to characterize the lasing properties of PM lasers: for two-dimensional systems, the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory will obtain the resonant modes of the coupled molecules in an active medium described by SALT. Not only is then the theoretical description more complete, the use of an active medium provides additional parameters to control, engineer and harness the lasing properties of PM lasers for ultra-low threshold and directional single-mode emission.Comment: 16th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (2014

Optimization of integrated polarization filters

This study reports on the design of small footprint, integrated polarization filters based on engineered photonic lattices. Using a rods-in-air lattice as a basis for a TE filter and a holes-in-slab lattice for the analogous TM filter, we are able to maximize the degree of polarization of the output beams up to 98 % with a transmission efficiency greater than 75 %. The proposed designs allow not only for logical polarization filtering, but can also be tailored to output an arbitrary transverse beam profile. The lattice configurations are found using a recently proposed parallel tabu search algorithm for combinatorial optimization problems in integrated photonics

Ab initio investigation of lasing thresholds in photonic molecules

We investigate lasing thresholds in a representative photonic molecule composed of two coupled active cylinders of slightly different radii. Specifically, we use the recently formulated steady-state ab initio laser theory (SALT) to assess the effect of the underlying gain transition on lasing frequencies and thresholds. We find that the order in which modes lase can be modified by choosing suitable combinations of the gain center frequency and linewidth, a result that cannot be obtained using the conventional approach of quasi-bound modes. The impact of the gain transition center on the lasing frequencies, the frequency pulling effect, is also quantified

Spatial econometrics and spatial data pooled over time : toward and adapted modeling approach

In this paper, we address the possible problem related to using strictly spatial modeling techniques for spatial data pooled over time. For these data, such as real estate, the spatial dimension is present, but subject to constraints related to temporal dimension. Three empirical examples are presented to investigate the impact of neglecting the temporal dimension in spatial analysis and to show how such an approach overestimates the pattem of spatial dependence, along with the estimated spatial autoregressive coefficient. If generalized to all other empirical applications, this conclusion may have important considerations if one tries to measure the effect of extrinsic amenities on house prices

Percolation on random networks with arbitrary k-core structure

The k-core decomposition of a network has thus far mainly served as a powerful tool for the empirical study of complex networks. We now propose its explicit integration in a theoretical model. We introduce a Hard-core Random Network model that generates maximally random networks with arbitrary degree distribution and arbitrary k-core structure. We then solve exactly the bond percolation problem on the HRN model and produce fast and precise analytical estimates for the corresponding real networks. Extensive comparison with selected databases reveals that our approach performs better than existing models, while requiring less input information.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

State Dependence and Alternative Explanations for Consumer Inertia

For many consumer packaged goods products, researchers have documented a form of state dependence whereby consumers become "loyal" to products they have consumed in the past. That is, consumers behave as though there is a utility premium from continuing to purchase the same product as they have purchased in the past or, equivalently, there is a psychological cost to switching products. However, it has not been established that this form of state dependence can be identified in the presence of consumer heterogeneity of an unknown form. Most importantly, before this inertia can be given a structural interpretation and used in policy experiments such as counterfactual pricing exercises,alternative explanations which might give rise to similar consumer behavior must be ruled out. We develop a flexible model of heterogeneity which can be given a semi-parametric interpretation and rule out alternative explanations for positive state dependence such as autocorrelated choice errors, consumer search, or consumer learning.

Growing networks of overlapping communities with internal structure

We introduce an intuitive model that describes both the emergence of community structure and the evolution of the internal structure of communities in growing social networks. The model comprises two complementary mechanisms: One mechanism accounts for the evolution of the internal link structure of a single community, and the second mechanism coordinates the growth of multiple overlapping communities. The first mechanism is based on the assumption that each node establishes links with its neighbors and introduces new nodes to the community at different rates. We demonstrate that this simple mechanism gives rise to an effective maximal degree within communities. This observation is related to the anthropological theory known as Dunbar's number, i.e., the empirical observation of a maximal number of ties which an average individual can sustain within its social groups. The second mechanism is based on a recently proposed generalization of preferential attachment to community structure, appropriately called structural preferential attachment (SPA). The combination of these two mechanisms into a single model (SPA+) allows us to reproduce a number of the global statistics of real networks: The distribution of community sizes, of node memberships and of degrees. The SPA+ model also predicts (a) three qualitative regimes for the degree distribution within overlapping communities and (b) strong correlations between the number of communities to which a node belongs and its number of connections within each community. We present empirical evidence that support our findings in real complex networks.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 2 table