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

Anodically polarized nickel electrodes in DMSO or DMF solutions of pseudohalide ions: IR spectroelectrochemical studies

A novel subtractively normalized interfacial Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic (SNIFTIRS) investigation of anodically polarized nickel electrodes in pseudohalide-containing DMF or DMSO solutions (i.e. OCN⁻, SCN⁻, SeCN⁻), in supporting electrolyte, tetrabutylammonium perchlorate (TBAP), is presented. In general, the data showed that nickel demonstrated irreversible anodic dissolution in all solutions studied at very high values of the applied potential, > +500 mV (AgCl/Ag). The predominant speciation of nickel in these systems was as complex ions consisting of Ni²⁺ ion complexed to pseudohalide ions and solvent molecules. Insoluble films and dissolved CO₂ were also detected, though mostly in the Ni/OCN⁻ systems studied. Ni(II)/pseudohalide complex ion species detected were modeled using solutions containing Ni²⁺ ion mixed with pseudohalide ion in different mole ratios. In general, the Ni/OCN⁻ electrochemical system behaved differently relative to those of Ni/SCN⁻ and Ni/SeCN⁻ due to the difference in colors observed in cell solutions after SNIFTIRS experiments which was mirrored in the model solutions. Ni(II)-cyanate species had a different, coordination geometry and gave a characteristic bright blue color due possibly to Ni(NCO)₄²⁻ ion while Ni(II) thiocyanate and selenocyanate complex ion species had octahedral coordination geometries containing solvent and one coordinated pseudohalide ion and formed greeny yellow solutions

The jumping champion conjecture

An integer $d$ is called a jumping champion for a given $x$ if $d$ is the most common gap between consecutive primes up to $x$. Occasionally several gaps are equally common. Hence, there can be more than one jumping champion for the same $x$. For the $n$th prime $p_{n}$, the $n$th primorial $p_{n}^{\sharp}$ is defined as the product of the first $n$ primes. In 1999, Odlyzko, Rubinstein and Wolf provided convincing heuristics and empirical evidence for the truth of the hypothesis that the jumping champions greater than 1 are 4 and the primorials $p_{1}^{\sharp}, p_{2}^{\sharp}, p_{3}^{\sharp}, p_{4}^{\sharp}, p_{5}^{\sharp}, ...$, that is, $2, 6, 30, 210, 2310, ....$ In this paper, we prove that an appropriate form of the Hardy-Littlewood prime $k$-tuple conjecture for prime pairs and prime triples implies that all sufficiently large jumping champions are primorials and that all sufficiently large primorials are jumping champions over a long range of $x$.Comment: 19 pages, 1 tabl