On geophysical applications of two-layer and two-phase shallow models

The main objective of this talk is to present some geophysical applications that can be studied with two-layer or two-phase shallow models. Namely, applications on avalanches and sediment transport problems. Firstly, several models will be presented, by studying the relations between them. Actually, all the models considered in this talk include a source term corresponding to a Coulomb friction law. One of the difficulties of this term is that it is multi-evaluated for the case of a material at rest. The second part of the presentation focus on an unified formulation to approximate numerically these models, taking into account the difficulty introduced by multi-evaluated source terms.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

European Jobs Monitor 2014: Drivers of Recent Job Polarisation and Upgrading in Europe

[Excerpt] European labour markets added nearly 30 million new jobs in a golden age of employment creation prior to the onset of the Great Recession in 2008. These labour markets subsequently shed six million jobs, and unemployment peaked at 11% in 2013, its highest rate in well over a decade. This third annual European Jobs Monitor report looks in detail at recent shifts in employment at Member State and European Union level in the two years from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2013. It applies a jobs-based approach, which ranks jobs according to wage and then groups them into five categories of equal size (quintiles) ranging from lowest-paid to highest-paid. The net employment change between the starting and concluding periods (in terms of people employed) for each quintile in each country is summed to establish whether there has been net gain or loss. This analytic approach enables employment shifts to be described quantitatively (how many jobs were created or destroyed) and qualitatively (what sectors and occupations were most affected). The report also examines some of the likely drivers of recent shifts in the employment structure: technological advances, as measured by the cognitive and routine task content of jobs; globalisation and trade, measured as the offshorability of tasks or direct international trade; and labour market institutions

Labor productivity: a comparative analysis of the European Union and United States, for the period 1994-2007

This Working Ppaer confirms that labor productivity in the European economies has continued to slow down in recent years. U.S. productivity growth has been higher than in the EU, but only since 2001. At the same time, both economies have modified previous employment performance: EU employment growth is now higher than in U.S. This article proposes that productivity growth be explained by demand dynamics, and investment in particular, not forgetting the influence of employment, along with other factors such as new technologies.Labor Productivity; Demand; Employment; Labor Markets; Economic Sectors

A Coordinated EU Minimum Wage Policy?

[Excerpt] Minimum wages exist in all EU member states, even if, as we shall see in this report, they are set up and established in very different ways. Minimum wages, in fact, can be considered as a cornerstone of the “European Social Model”. Yet, the on-going process of European integration has so far had very little to do with them. Wages are explicitly excluded from the competences of European institutions in the existing treaties, contrary to other areas of work and employment such as working time or health and safety. But in the context of increasing European integration, it seems at least plausible that sooner or later there would be some attempt of coordinating this important aspect of social policy across countries. As we will see in this report, the idea has been discussed at the European level several times since the EU was born, and it seems to be gaining momentum the context of the current economic crisis. Of course, the discussion is by no means settled, as many important European and national actors consider that this area should remain within the remit of national governments and according to national traditions and practices. It is certainly possible that wages, and minimum wages, would remain squarely at the level of national competence in the foreseeable future. Still, it seems like a worthwhile exercise (useful to the debate) to explore what kind of implications would be associated with such a coordination of European minimum wage policy. This is what we will try to do in this report. Without taking ourselves a position, we will try to provide arguments and facts that we hope can be useful in this debate. The report is organized in two big sections. In the first one, we will discuss the theoretical and policy considerations around a coordinated EU minimum wage policy. We will review the social sciences literature on the effects of minimum wages, present a broad picture of the current debates around the coordination of EU minimum wage policy and discuss the institutional difficulties that such a coordination would in our view have to face. In other words, that section will try to provide a balanced summary of the theoretical and policy arguments around this debate. The second big section will try to complement the arguments with some facts, by carrying out a “simple accounting exercise” to evaluate how many and what types of workers would be most affected by a hypothetical coordination of minimum wage policy in the different countries, using a baseline scenario of a single national wage floor of 60% of the median national wages and drawing from the two most recent EU-wide data sources on wages and income. Eurofound was established in 1975 with the mandate of contributing with knowledge to the planning and design of better living and working conditions in Europe. We hope that this report can at least contribute to the debate

A contratación públic averde: unha ferramenta xurídica ao servizo das políticas de sostibilidade ambiental

[Resumo] A Contratación Pública Verde é unha ferramenta central na consecución dos obxectivos de aforro en gastos correntes da Administración Pública, de redución do impacto ambiental das actividades do sector e de estímulo á innovación e desenvolvemento de tecnoloxías, produtos e servizos “verdes”, na procura dun modelo de crecemento sostible a longo prazo. Este estudo analiza o mapa xurídico actual en canto ás posibilidades na inclusión de criterios medioambientais nos procedementos de Contratación Pública, deitando luz sobre dous dos principais puntos escuros na súa implantación: a inseguridade xurídica e o descoñecemento das súas vantaxes.[Abstract] Green Public Procurement is a main tool in the attaining savings in the Public Administration running costs, reducing the environmental impact of the sector activities and encouraging innovation and development of “green” technologies, products and services, looking for a model of sustainable growth in the long run. This study examines the current legal map in terms of the possibilities of including environmental criteria in public procurement procedures, pouring light on two major dark spots on its implementation: the legal uncertainty and not knowing of its advantages

Thinning of Organic Apple Production with Potassic Soap and Calcium Polysulfide at the North of Spain.

Asturias, in the North West coast of Spain, is a region with old tradition at cultivation of apple and its transformation to cider. The production of apple is mainly done under traditional uses and semi-extensive or semi-intensive system and with local cultivars. Thinning strategy is little practiced and the biennial bearing cycle is one of the main problems for the farmers. The production of apple under organic techniques in Asturias is still limited but increasing. Since 2005, experiments have been conducted on several cultivars (‘Raxao’, ‘Xuanina’ and ‘Gold-Rush’) to evaluate the effects of Potassic Soap (with or without olive oil) and Calcium Polysulfide as thinning products. We present here the first promising results of these experiments. With different concentrations of both products we have increased the apple production of two cultivars for the period 2006- 2007. There were positive effects on the vegetative growth of the trees and on the quality of apples. In the spring 2007 we initiated new experiments with other cultivars (‘Durona de Tresali’, ‘Solarina’, ‘Raxao’, ‘Regona’) in order to confirm our results. The new experiments also include the comparison of their effects with those of commonly used chemical products and with those of manual thinning techniques

New Tasks in Old Jobs: Drivers of Change and Implications for Job Quality

This overview report summarises the findings of 20 case studies looking at recent changes in the task content of five manufacturing occupations (car assemblers, meat processing workers, hand-packers, chemical products plant and machine operators and inspection engineers) as a result of factors such as digital transformations, globalisation and offshoring, increasing demand for high quality standards and sustainability. It also discusses some implications in terms of job quality and working life. The study reveals that the importance of physical tasks in manufacturing is generally declining due to automation; that more intensive use of digitally controlled equipment, together with increasing importance of quality standards, involve instead a growing amount of intellectual tasks for manual industrial workers; and that the amount of routine task content is still high in the four manual occupations studied. Overall, the report highlights how qualitative contextual information can complement existing quantitative data, offering a richer understanding of changes in the content and nature of jobs