State transitions in Polish agriculture

Poland's imminent entry into the EU re-emphasises the long-standing need for the restructuring of the country's agricultural sector and the associated re-allocation of its bloated workforce. The transition matrix of net flows derived from an annual panel of micro-data taken from the LFS confirms the impression of the stagnation that is conveyed by gross movements that are computable from the published statistics. Multinomial logit estimation of the probabilities of exit from Polish farming lend weight to the conclusion that radical policy innovations are required if many of Europe's ambitions and targets are to remain credible in the years to come.

Labour flows into and out of Polish agriculture: a micro-level analysis

Notwithstanding its admission to the EU, agricultural restructuring and sustainable rural development remain as major transition challenges confronting Poland. Achieving these joint goals will necessitate major labour flows from farming into other occupations and sectors. This paper employs a multinomial logit model on Labour Force Survey data to analyse mobility in the agricultural labour market. Its major finding is that of a largely stagnant pool of farm workers into and out of which are small flows that are insufficient to bring about the requisite change without explicit, perhaps radical policy intervention.

Temporary Work in Poland: Who Gets the Jobs?

In recent years, Poland witnessed a dramatic decline in its unemployment rate and, from having had one of the worst jobless records in the EU-27, the country now posts a figure below the Union average. However, this remarkable turnaround has apparently been driven by amendments to the country's Labour Code, which have generated an enormous increase in temporary working. On the basis of gross flow data from five consecutive annual panels from the Labour Force Survey, the paper identifies a strong link between this growth and the fall in unemployment. A multinomial logit model then reveals the flows were most heavily concentrated among males and the less well educated. There was also some evidence that fixed-term work lured previously discouraged, inactive individuals back into the labour market. However, the requirement that Poland aligns its temporary employment legislation with that of the EU could conceivable lead to at least a partial reversal of these developments.

Poland''s Jobless Growth: A Temporary Cure?

Poland's post-communist economic performance has been generally good. However, for many years its growth was jobless, it exhibited very high unemployment rates and concomitantly made little progress in approaching the targets set for EU Member States under the Lisbon Strategy. Unexpectedly, in 2003 the country's labour market began to exhibit a new dynamism, with employment growing strongly and unemployment tumbling. This apparent improvement coincided with a liberalisation of its Labour Code. Unfortunately, the measures introduced to increase flexibility are seemingly at variance with the EU's Fixed-Term Work Directive and might need to be modified.

Why do Local Unemployment Rates in Poland Vary so Much?

Unemployment continues to bedevil Poland, albeit with striking sub-national differences, which this paper seeks to explain using random effects error component two-stage estimation for the country's NUTS 4 level powiats. Given the economy's peculiar configuration under communism, with its large private agricultural sector, emphasis is placed on rural-urban differences. While less densely populated areas do suffer higher unemployment rates, the effect is moderated by hidden unemployment in farming. On the other hand, powiats that housed the ex-state farms suffer a negative long-term legacy. Other notable results include an evident positive impact of foreign capital on local labour market fortunes.

Temporary Work in Poland: Who Gets the Jobs?

In recent years, Poland witnessed a dramatic decline in its unemployment rate and, from having had one of the worst jobless records in the EU-27, the country now posts a figure below the Union average. However, this remarkable turnaround has apparently been driven by amendments to the country's Labour Code, which have generated an enormous increase in temporary working. On the basis of gross flow data from five consecutive annual panels from the Labour Force Survey, the paper identifies a strong link between this growth and the fall in unemployment. A multinomial logit model then reveals the flows were most heavily concentrated among males and the less well educated. There was also some evidence that fixed-term work lured previously discouraged, inactive individuals back into the labour market. However, the requirement that Poland aligns its temporary employment legislation with that of the EU could conceivable lead to at least a partial reversal of these developments

Liquid ethylene-propylene copolymers

Oligomers are prepared by heating solid ethylene-propylene rubber in container that retains solid and permits liquid product to flow out as it is formed. Molecular weight and viscosity of liquids can be predetermined by process temperature. Copolymers have low viscosity for given molecular weight

Lexical Borrowing in the Middle English period: A multi-domain analysis of semantic outcomes

The Middle English period is well known as one of widespread lexical borrowing from French and Latin, and scholarly accounts traditionally assume that this influx of loanwords caused many native terms to shift in sense or to drop out of use entirely. The study analyses an extensive dataset, tracking patterns in lexical retention, replacement and semantic change, and comparing long-term outcomes for both native and non-native words. Our results challenge the conventional view of competition between existing terms and foreign incomers. They show that there were far fewer instances of relexification, and far more of synonymy, during the Middle English period than might have been expected. When retention rates for words first attested between 1100-1500 are compared, it is loanwords, not native terms, which are more likely to become obsolete at any point up to the nineteenth century. Furthermore, proportions of outcomes involving narrowing and broadening (often considered common outcomes following the arrival of a co-hyponym in a semantic space) were low in the Middle English period, regardless of language of origin

Woman's right to revelation : literary representations of spiritual sensibility in the writings of Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Baker Eddy

[From the introduction]:This thesis will explore the philosophical writing of four female reformers, identifying how their spiritual representations of the feminine attempted to authorise and empower women. It will critically investigate how Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Baker Eddy challenged historical identity formations, textually communicating a spiritual role for women through a language of patriotism and piety. Discourse which emphasised public virtue and domestic duty as areas of female concern highlighted the potential for female influence in the private and public sphere. It was that eighteenth-century phenomenon, the cult of sensibility, and its emphasis on benevolence, sympathy and a heightened state of consciousness, however, which significantly reinforced an appreciation of the feminine, and female reformers took advantage of the literary space this 'cult' made available to them. Championing the benefits of well educated Christian women, More, Wollstonecraft, Stanton and Eddy constructed an idiom through which to represent the spiritual equality of the male and female. An innovative critical route will reveal the means through which they promoted their plausible alternative to religious arguments for female subjection.The thesis will critically analyse their writings, identifying the religious threads, which it will suggest underpinned their arguments. In spite of the parallels in their perspectives, however, there is an exciting diversity. Four authors: two British, two American; two eighteenth-century, two nineteenth-century; and possibly even more crucial, two feminist and two anti-feminist perspectives, all indicate the inevitably challenging nature of this topic. It is important to make clear at the outset, however, that the critical interrogatory route will be focused quite specifically towards 'The Woman Question.' Because each woman made an indelible mark on the historical landscape, their ultimate achievements will be identified in the first instance