Forecasting the Labour Markets for Research Scientsits and Engineers in the European Union

The aim of this study is to assess whether the higher education systems in the Member States of the European Union will produce sufficient numbers of science & technology (S&T) graduates to meet the demands for research scientists and engineers (RSE’s) up to 2002. On the demand side, we distinguish between job openings due to employment growth (expansion demand) and due to outflow (replacement demand). Employment of RSE’s is modelled as an error correction mechanism with R&D expenditure as the explanatory variable. A recent survey of European R&D establishments enables us to determine replacement demand. On the supply side, the labour market inflow of RSE’s is derived from data on S&T-graduates and RSE employment. We produce forecasts for demand and supply for 14 Member States of the EU under four alternative scenarios, which are based on two dimensions: economic growth and human capital policy. The forecasts are first used to identify labour market discrepancies by country and by field of study. Then we identify the opportunities for international labour mobility to solve the bottlenecks in the labour markets. The forecasting results indicate considerable shortages of RSE’s in certain fields of study in various Member States of the EU under certain scenarios. At the same time, for the EU as a whole there are excess supplies in each of the four fields of study distinguished, no matter which scenario will unfold up to 2002, illustrating the importance of international labour mobility.education, training and the labour market;

Methodiek arbeidsmarktprognoses en -indicatoren 1999-2004

In dit werkdocument wordt een overzicht gegeven van de methodiek die is gehanteerd bij het opstellen van de arbeidsmarktprognoses naar opleiding en beroep tot 2004 en de bijbehorende arbeidsmarktindicatoren ten behoeve van het rapport De arbeidsmarkt naar opleiding en beroep tot 2004 en de bijbehorende Statistische Bijlage. Het ROA brengt deze arbeidsmarktinformatie uit in het kader van het Project Onderwijs - Arbeidsmarkt (POA). De gegevens – die een beeld geven van de arbeidsmarktpositie van opleidingen en beroepen – zijn ook gebruikt door het LDC Expertisecentrum voor loopbaanvraagstukken, onder andere in de publicatie Kansen op werk 2004 en de op CD-ROM verkrijgbare Traject-reeks.education, training and the labour market;

Coordination between arm and leg movements during locomotion

To evaluate the contrasting dynamical and biomechanical interpretations of the 2:1 frequency coordination between arm and leg movements that occurs at low walking velocities and the 1:1 frequency coordination that occurs at higher walking velocities, the authors conducted an experiment in which they quantified the effect of walking velocity on the stability of the frequency and phase coordination between the individual limb movements. Spectral analyses revealed the presence of 2:1 frequency coordination as a consistent feature of the data in only 3 out of 8 participants at walking velocities ranging from 1.0 to 2.0 km/h, in spite of the fact that the eigenfrequencies of the arms were rather similar across participants. The degree of interlimb coupling, as indexed by weighted coherence and variability of relative phase, was lower for the arm movements and for ipsilateral and diagonal combinations of arm and leg movements than for the leg movements. Furthermore, the coupling between all pairs of limb movements was found to increase with walking velocity, whereas no clear signs were observed that the switches from 2:1 to 1:1 frequency coordination and vice versa were preceded by loss of stability. Therefore, neither a purely biomechanical nor a purely dynamical model is optimally suited to explain these results. Instead, an integrative model involving elements of both approaches seems to be required

Intelligent negotiation model for ubiquitous group decision scenarios

Supporting group decision-making in ubiquitous contexts is a complex task that must deal with a large amount of factors to succeed. Here we propose an approach for an intelligent negotiation model to support the group decision-making process specially designed for ubiquitous contexts. Our approach can be used by researchers that intend to include arguments, complex algorithms and agents' modelling in a negotiation model. It uses a social networking logic due to the type of communication employed by the agents and it intends to support the ubiquitous group decision-making process in a similar way to the real process, which simultaneously preserves the amount and quality of intelligence generated in face-to-face meetings. We propose a new look into this problematic by considering and defining strategies to deal with important points such as the type of attributes in the multicriteria problems, agents' reasoning and intelligent dialogues.This work has been supported by COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) within project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043, by National Funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within the Projects UID/CEC/00319/2013, UID/EEA/00760/2013, and the João Carneiro PhD grant with the reference SFRH/BD/89697/2012 and by Project MANTIS - Cyber Physical System Based Proactive Collaborative Maintenance (ECSEL JU Grant nr. 662189).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio