Results of the Bank’s survey of wage-setting in Belgian firms

The analysis presented is the outcome of a survey conducted by the Bank and forming the Belgian component of an initiative launched by the Wage Dynamics Network (WDN), in order to accompany the empirical analysis based on individual employees’ wage data obtained, for instance, from administrative data banks. The survey contains questions on the wage-setting process, the existence of downward rigidity and the reasons for it, the reaction of firms to shocks, and the frequency and timing of wage and price adjustments. The survey reveals that almost all firms in Belgium are covered by a sector agreement, and just over a quarter apply an additional collective wage agreement at the firm level. Such firm-level collective agreements are more common in large firms. The results also show that just over half of firms apply a wage indexation mechanism with a threshold index, while just under half operate in an environment where indexation takes place at fixed intervals. The latter system is more common in large firms, so that the weighted results indicate that this mechanism applies to the majority of employees. The level of wages of new employees depends mainly on what is specified in collective agreements and on the wage level of comparable employees in the firm. However, the wages which the firm actually pays to its staff may deviate from the pay scales specified in the sectoral agreements. In a significant number of firms, especially for white-collar workers and skilled staff, actual wages paid exceed the sectoral pay scales. Such a wage cushion, forming a buffer between the actual wages and the collectively agreed lower limits, is more common in large firms. Overall, firms seldom respond to adverse shocks by cutting basic wages or using alternative ways of reducing labour costs per employee. Certainly in large firms, costs are reduced mainly via the employment channel, i.e. by reducing the number of primarily permanent staff, and to a lesser extent temporary workers. Reductions in non-wage costs are also important, while variable pay components are only cut in a small number of cases. Only a quarter of firms state that they adjust their prices more than once a year. Time-dependent price adjustments, in which the time of the adjustment does not depend on economic conditions (as opposed to state-dependent adjustments), occur in 22 p.c. of firms and are noticeably common in the business service sector. Combined with the low frequency of price adjustments, this indicates price rigidity in that sector. The frequency and timing of wage adjustments are closely linked to the indexation mechanism applied. Most firms adjust their wages no more than once a year. Time-dependent wage adjustments in a specific month apply to 61 p.c. of firms, and – like price adjustments – wage adjustments are concentrated in the month of January. Another peak occurs in July, and there is some concentration at the beginning of the second and fourth quarters, particularly in the case of wage adjustments.Survey, wages, prices, employment

Application of two way nesting model to upscale sediment processes of the Southern Bight of the North Sea: full model validation

The BRAIN project FaCE-iT (Functional biodiversity in a Changing sedimentary Environment: Implications for biogeochemistry and food webs in a managerial setting) funded by BELSPO aims at evaluating the influence of offshore wind farms settlements and dredging activities on the distribution of sediment grain size over the Southern Bight of the North Sea (SBNS) and the Belgian Coastal Zone (BCZ), as well as associated impacts on biodiversity and biogeochemistry.In this framework an implementation of the tri-dimensional hydrodynamical and sediment transport model ROMS-COAWST was set-up to conduct scenario experiment relating offshore activities to resulting alteration of the seafloor structure. This implementation combines high resolution nested grids covering the Belgian Coastal Zone, embedded into a coarser grid covering the Southern Bight of the North Sea and is forced by ECMWF ERA-Interim data at the air-sea interface, CMEMS data at the open boundaries, TPXO data to introduce/force the tidal impact, and consider the discharge of four main rivers. Currently, the work focuses on assessing the skills of this modelling system to resolve the dynamics of the complex shallow and highly tidal region. The 3-year climatological run for 2006-2009 was performed to test the model ability to simulate the interannual dynamics. The model skills were evaluated by validation against remote-sensing temperature fields, tidal elevations and currents at the Meetnet pylons, and in situ temperature and salinity data provided by the Lifewatch network. We evaluate how grid refinement and different set-up of the nesting strategy enhance essential model skills in relation with sediment transport The further step will be to confront the sediment transport dynamics stemming from the nested system to that resolved from the coarser parent alone. A diagenetic model developed in the frame of FaCE-iT will be joint with the sediment model in order to upscale locally derived alteration of the biogeochemistry and benthic functionality stemming from seafloor texture alteration.Functional biodiversity in a Changing sedimentary Environment: Implications for biogeochemistry and food webs in a managerial setting (FaCE-It

A note on the age of radioactive tracers

Abstract The age of a water mass is often estimated experimentally using the radio-age computed from the distribution of a radioactive tracer (radiocarbon, helium -tritium). Deleersnijder et al. [J. Mar. Syst. 28 (2001) 229.] have shown that the radioage underestimates the age of the water and is larger than the age of the radioactive tracer used for its evaluation. This result is generalized here to radio-ages computed from the ratio of two radioactive tracers. The differences between the different ages are also studied analytically and numerically as functions of the decay rate of the radioactive tracers. For small decay rates, the difference between the age of the water mass and the radio-age is shown to be proportional to the decay rate. It depends also on the level of mixing in the system; even radioactive tracers with small decay rates can provide poor estimates of the age of the water mass in a strongly diffusive flow. For small half lives, both the radio-age and the age of radioactive tracers decrease as the inverse of the square root of the decay rate. The same analysis applies to some extent to the estimates of the age of a water mass from stable tracers with known time dependent sources (e.g. chloroflurocarbons)

A comparison of 4 different machine learning algorithms to predict lactoferrin content in bovine milk from mid-infrared spectra

peer-reviewedLactoferrin (LF) is a glycoprotein naturally present in milk. Its content varies throughout lactation, but also with mastitis; therefore it is a potential additional indicator of udder health beyond somatic cell count. Condequently, there is an interest in quantifying this biomolecule routinely. First prediction equations proposed in the literature to predict the content in milk using milk mid-infrared spectrometry were built using partial least square regression (PLSR) due to the limited size of the data set. Thanks to a large data set, the current study aimed to test 4 different machine learning algorithms using a large data set comprising 6,619 records collected across different herds, breeds, and countries. The first algorithm was a PLSR, as used in past investigations. The second and third algorithms used partial least square (PLS) factors combined with a linear and polynomial support vector regression (PLS + SVR). The fourth algorithm also used PLS factors, but included in an artificial neural network with 1 hidden layer (PLS + ANN). The training and validation sets comprised 5,541 and 836 records, respectively. Even if the calibration prediction performances were the best for PLS + polynomial SVR, their validation prediction performances were the worst. The 3 other algorithms had similar validation performances. Indeed, the validation root mean squared error (RMSE) ranged between 162.17 and 166.75 mg/L of milk. However, the lower standard deviation of cross-validation RMSE and the better normality of the residual distribution observed for PLS + ANN suggest that this modeling was more suitable to predict the LF content in milk from milk mid-infrared spectra (R2v = 0.60 and validation RMSE = 162.17 mg/L of milk). This PLS +ANN model was then applied to almost 6 million spectral records. The predicted LF showed the expected relationships with milk yield, somatic cell score, somatic cell count, and stage of lactation. The model tended to underestimate high LF values (higher than 600 mg/L of milk). However, if the prediction threshold was set to 500 mg/L, 82% of samples from the validation having a content of LF higher than 600 mg/L were detected. Future research should aim to increase the number of those extremely high LF records in the calibration set

Microphase separation of highly amphiphilic, low N polymers by photoinduced copper-mediated polymerization, achieving sub-2 nm domains at half-pitch

The lower limit of domain size resolution using microphase separation of short poly(acrylic acid) homopolymers equipped with a short fluorinated tail, posing as an antagonist 'A block' in pseudo AB block copolymers has been investigated. An alkyl halide initiator with a fluorocarbon chain was utilized as a first 'A block' in the synthesis of low molecular weight polymers (1400-4300 g mol -1) using photoinduced Cu(ii)-mediated polymerization allowing for very narrow dispersity. Poly(tert-butyl acrylate) was synthesized and subsequently deprotected to give very low degrees of polymerization (N), amphiphilic polymers with low dispersity (D = 1.06-1.13). By exploiting the high driving force for demixing and the well-defined 'block' sizes, we are able to control the nanostructure in terms of domain size (down to 3.4 nm full-pitch) and morphology. This work demonstrates the simple and highly controlled synthesis of polymers to push the boundaries of the smallest achievable domain sizes obtained from polymer self-assembly