Transition on the Shop Floor - The Restructuring of a Weaving Mill, Hungary 1988-97

While a variety of studies analysed the benign effects of privatisation on firm performance under post-socialist transition using financial data very little is known about how the apparent productivity gains were achieved. This paper follows a weaving mill from 1998 to 1997 on its way of becoming a capitalist enterprise and gives a detailed account of the sources and limits of productivity growth. The data suggests that the factory was not far from the competitive optimum given the size of ‘plant and equipment’ - efficiency gains were mostly achieved by plant size reduction and asset stripping. The gains from this sort of initial restructuring helped many former state enterprises stay on the market but they did not necessarily indicate high levels of adaptability, capacity to innovate and ability to attract outside investors. In economies with many `seemingly restructured` privatised enterprises the elimination of the former state sector jobs is likely to continue within the private sector. The process may last for years after privatisation as a legal act had been fully accomplished.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40031/3/wp645.pd

Transition on the Shop Floor - The Restructuring of a Weaving Mill, Hungary 1988-97

While a variety of studies analysed the benign effects of privatisation on firm performance under post-socialist transition using financial data very little is known about how the apparent productivity gains were achieved. This paper follows a weaving mill from 1998 to 1997 on its way of becoming a capitalist enterprise and gives a detailed account of the sources and limits of productivity growth. The data suggests that the factory was not far from the competitive optimum given the size of ‘plant and equipment’ - efficiency gains were mostly achieved by plant size reduction and asset stripping. The gains from this sort of initial restructuring helped many former state enterprises stay on the market but they did not necessarily indicate high levels of adaptability, capacity to innovate and ability to attract outside investors. In economies with many `seemingly restructured` privatised enterprises the elimination of the former state sector jobs is likely to continue within the private sector. The process may last for years after privatisation as a legal act had been fully accomplished.firm behaviour, firm objectives, compensation, transition, Hungary

Fighting “Low Equilibria” by Doubling the Minimum Wage ? Hungary’s Experiment

In January 2001 the Hungarian government increased the minimum wage from Ft 25,500 to Ft 40,000. One year later the wage floor rose further to Ft 50,000. The paper looks at the short-run impact of the first hike on small-firm employment and flows between employment and unemployment. It finds that the hike significantly increased labor costs and reduced employment in the small firm sector; and adversely affected the job retention and job finding probabilities of low-wage workers. While the conditions for a positive employment effect were mostly met in depressed regions spatial inequalities were amplified rather than reduced.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40030/3/wp644.pd

Fighting “Low Equilibria” by Doubling the Minimum Wage ? Hungary’s Experiment

In January 2001 the Hungarian government increased the minimum wage from Ft 25,500 to Ft 40,000. One year later the wage floor rose further to Ft 50,000. The paper looks at the short-run impact of the first hike on small-firm employment and flows between employment and unemployment. It finds that the hike significantly increased labor costs and reduced employment in the small firm sector; and adversely affected the job retention and job finding probabilities of low-wage workers. While the conditions for a positive employment effect were mostly met in depressed regions spatial inequalities were amplified rather than reduced.Minimum wages, Regional labor markets, Transition, Hungary

L’enseignement de la géographie

The author, formerly a teacher of geography, is now the Superior of a Seminary near Nancy, France. This address was delivered before a group of Superiors and Principals of secondary schools during a congress held at Nantes, in July 1956. He demonstrates vigorously that good geography teaching is impossible without a qualified teacher who bas mastered his subject.The first difficulty comes from the fact that the field of geography is so vast : it includes all countries the world over. Good qualifications are also desirable because geography, even if it is a separate discipline, is situated at a cross-road where many other sciences converge : geology, hydrology, history, economics, sociology, etc. The education of the geography teacher must enable him to use the conclusions of all other sciences as far as they help to understand the environmental and regional point of view which distinguishes geography.It is important that the geography teacher be aware of the psychological foundations of his teaching, for geography can develop specific intellectual habits, for instance, a sense of reality, a training in the art of observation, strictness in the art of description, and a discriminating sense of comparison between the various aspects of problems.Finally, the author maintains that a good teacher must know the documentary basis of his work and must have the essential references in hand. Of course, he should have at his disposal the necessary audio-visual equipment (maps, models, films slides, radio, television, etc.) kept in a special room

Various Versatile Variances: An Object-Oriented Implementation of Clustered Covariances in R

Clustered covariances or clustered standard errors are very widely used to account for correlated or clustered data, especially in economics, political sciences, and other social sciences. They are employed to adjust the inference following estimation of a standard least-squares regression or generalized linear model estimated by maximum likelihood. Although many publications just refer to "the" clustered standard errors, there is a surprisingly wide variety of clustered covariances, particularly due to different flavors of bias corrections. Furthermore, while the linear regression model is certainly the most important application case, the same strategies can be employed in more general models (e.g., for zero-inflated, censored, or limited responses). In R, functions for covariances in clustered or panel models have been somewhat scattered or available only for certain modeling functions, notably the (generalized) linear regression model. In contrast, an object-oriented approach to "robust" covariance matrix estimation - applicable beyond lm() and glm() - is available in the sandwich package but has been limited to the case of cross-section or time series data. Starting with sandwich 2.4.0, this shortcoming has been corrected: Based on methods for two generic functions (estfun() and bread()), clustered and panel covariances are provided in vcovCL(), vcovPL(), and vcovPC(). Moreover, clustered bootstrap covariances are provided in vcovBS(), using model update() on bootstrap samples. These are directly applicable to models from packages including MASS, pscl, countreg, and betareg, among many others. Some empirical illustrations are provided as well as an assessment of the methods' performance in a simulation study

Les espaces de détente et de convivialité en bibliothèque : inspirations et nouveaux enjeux

Mémoire de fin d\u27étude du diplôme de conservateur, promotion 29 explorant les possibilités de mise en place d\u27une "bibliothèque troisième lieu" tout en prenant en compte la thématique contemporaine du manque de place travail en bibliothèque universitaire

Konzeption und Enwicklung einer auf Tablets optimierten mobilen Anwendung für kollaboratives Checklisten-Management

Durch die zunehmende Globalisierung und Auslagerung von Arbeiten an Maschinen und in Niedriglohnländer, wird das spezielle Fachwissen der hochentwickelten Länder zur industriellen Grundlage. Doch wissensintensiven Prozesse, welche sich genau in diesem Bereich finden und die Kollaboration mehrerer Beteiligter erfordern, stellen aufgrund ihrer Komplexität große Herausforderungen in der heutigen Zeit dar. Kollaboratives Checklisten-Management ist eine Möglichkeit diese Herausforderungen anzugehen und Personen bei ihrer wissensintensiven Arbeit und der gegenseitigen Interaktion zu unterstützen. Im Rahmen des Projekts proCollab soll evaluiert werden, mit welchen Mitteln kollaboratives Checklisten-Management unterstützt werden kann. In dieser Arbeit wird in diesem Zusammenhang eine mobile Anwendung nach dem Vorgehensmodell des Usability-Engineerings konzipiert, die ein benutzerfreundliches Checklisten-Management auf Tablets ermöglicht. Für diese werden Anforderungen analysiert, ein Gestaltungskonzept entworfen und dieses anschließend in Form eines Prototyps umgesetzt

Mitotane Nanocarriers for the Treatment of Adrenocortical Carcinoma: Evaluation of Albumin-Stabilized Nanoparticles and Liposomes in a Preclinical In Vitro Study with 3D Spheroids

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a heterogeneous malignancy related to poor prognosis and limited treatment options. The orphan drug mitotane (MT) is still a cornerstone in ACC therapy, however, its application is characterized by low aqueous solubility, poor bioavailability, and unfavorable pharmacokinetics, often resulting in below-target plasma concentrations or toxic side effects. Throughout the last decades, nanoparticulate formulations have become attractive carriers to improve anticancer therapy. In this study, injectable MT liposomes (DOPC-MT) and albumin-stabilized MT nanoparticles (BSA-MT) were investigated in depth with respect to their physicochemical properties, and their colloidal and therapeutical stability upon storage. Furthermore, in vitro cytotoxicity was evaluated using the ACC model cell line NCI-H295R for preparing multicellular tumor spheroids, and was compared to non-malignant human dermal fibroblasts. Our results clearly demonstrate that BSA-MT, unlike DOPC-MT, represents a stable and storable MT formulation with a high drug concentration in an aqueous medium. Dual centrifugation was established as a reproducible method for nanoparticle preparation. Although an efficient cytotoxic effect on ACC tumor spheroids was demonstrated, concomitant low toxicity to fibroblasts suggests that higher drug concentrations may be tolerated in vivo. Consequently, BSA-MT is a novel and promising therapeutical approach to address key challenges in MT treatment