Minimum wage in Greece and Southern Europe: Towards a new model for shaping labour relations

Το άρθρο επικεντρώνεται στο θεσµό του γενικού κατώτατου µισθού στην Ελλάδα και τον ευρωπαϊκό Νότο, κατά τη διάρκεια της κρίσης και µέχρι σήµερα. Η οικονοµική κρίση και ο τρόπος αντιµετώπισής της από τους ευρωπαϊκούς και διεθνείς θεσµούς οδήγησε εκτός των άλλων τόσο σε περιστολή των κοινωνικών δαπανών όσο σε περιοριστικές εισοδηµατικές πολιτικές. Ειδικά στα κράτη που βρέθηκαν σε «πρόγραµµα οικονοµικής στήριξης ή δηµοσιονοµικής πειθαρχίας», όπως η Ελλάδα, η Ισπανία και η Πορτογαλία, το σύνολο της αγοράς εργασίας και των εργασιακών σχέσεων υπήρξε πεδίο ριζικών µεταρρυθµίσεων. ∆ιακηρυγµένος στόχος ήταν η αύξηση της ευελιξίας στην αγορά εργασίας, η µείωση του εργατικού κόστους, η σταδιακή αποκέντρωση (decentralization) των συλλογικών συµβάσεων, η αλλαγή στον τρόπο διαµόρφωσης των µισθών, η ενίσχυση των ευέλικτων µορφών εργασίας. Στην έρευνά µας, µας απασχολούν οι αλλαγές στη θεσµική διαµόρφωση του κατώτατου µισθού στις χώρες του ευρωπαϊκού νότου που βρέθηκαν σε προγράµµατα δηµοσιονοµικής προσαρµογήςThe article focuses on the institution of the general minimum wage in Greece and Southern Europe during the economic recession and up to the present day. The economic crisis and the way it was dealt with by European and international institutions led not only to constraints in social expenditure but also restrictive income policies, among other things. Especially in countries that found themselves involved in ‘fiscal adjustment programmes’, like Greece, Spain, and Portugal, the whole of the labour market and labour relations became the arena for radical reforms. The declared targets were increasing flexibility in the labour market, decreasing labour force costs, gradually decentralizing collective agreements, changing the way wages are determined, and strengthening of flexible forms of work. Our study examines the changes in the established method of determining minimum wage in the countries of Southern Europe that were part of fiscal adjustment programmes

ICT and farmers : lessons learned and future developments

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) evolution is well advancing Moore?s Law prediction of geometric progression of computer performance indexes. Indeed, these technologies are not only fast developed but, in addition, are giving birth to newer ones nicely branching existing “old fashion” ICT systems and tools. These innovations of ICT are not only regenerating traditional sciences, like Agriculture, and practices, like farming, but also, awake well neglected human sensitiveness and indifference for poverty, environmental protection, climatic deterioration issues and the future of our planet as a whole. To refer to a few examples of these innovations affecting Agriculture and Environmental Sciences: Cloud Computing provides equality in resources management and exploitability to small budget farms against the big ones. Web2 browser allows, as a platform, effective runtime environment and considerably easy access to applications by farmers lacking proper education and training. Parallel Computing brings exponentially increased core processing to low-end computers facilitating the use of huge computer power by small agricultural research units. Never the less agricultural and farming communities, in their majority, do not adopt new ICT tools and systems to the degree required for substantial agricultural development. In this paper, experience gained over the years is used to evaluate and reason poor performance in the area of applicability of ICT innovations and tools by the vast majority of farmers throughout the world.</jats:p

Microgels Adsorbed at Liquid-Liquid Interfaces: A Joint Numerical and Experimental Study

Soft particles display highly versatile properties with respect to hard colloids, even more so at fluid-fluid interfaces. In particular, microgels, consisting of a cross-linked polymer network, are able to deform and flatten upon adsorption at the interface due to the balance between surface tension and internal elasticity. Despite the existence of experimental results, a detailed theoretical understanding of this phenomenon is still lacking due to the absence of appropriate microscopic models. In this work, we propose an advanced modelling of microgels at a flat water/oil interface. The model builds on a realistic description of the internal polymeric architecture and single-particle properties of the microgel and is able to reproduce its experimentally observed shape at the interface. Complementing molecular dynamics simulations with in-situ cryo-electron microscopy experiments and atomic force microscopy imaging after Langmuir-Blodgett deposition, we compare the morphology of the microgels for different values of the cross-linking ratios. Our model allows for a systematic microscopic investigation of soft particles at fluid interfaces, which is essential to develop predictive power for the use of microgels in a broad range of applications, including the stabilization of smart emulsions and the versatile patterning of surfaces

Self-Templating Assembly of Soft Microparticles into Complex Tessellations

Self-assembled monolayers of microparticles encoding Archimedean and non-regular tessellations promise unprecedented structure-property relationships for a wide spectrum of applications in fields ranging from optoelectronics to surface technology. Yet, despite numerous computational studies predicting the emergence of exotic structures from simple interparticle interactions, the experimental realization of non-hexagonal patterns remains challenging. Not only kinetic limitations often hinder structural relaxation, but also programming the inteparticle interactions during assembly, and hence the target structure, remains an elusive task. Here, we demonstrate how a single type of soft polymeric microparticle (microgels) can be assembled into a wide array of complex structures as a result of simple pairwise interactions. We first let microgels self-assemble at a water-oil interface into a hexagonally packed monolayer, which we then compress to varying degrees and deposit onto a solid substrate. By repeating this process twice, we find that the resultant structure is not the mere stacking of two hexagonal patterns. The first monolayer retains its hexagonal structure and acts as a template into which the particles of the second monolayer rearrange to occupy interstitial positions. The frustration between the two lattices generates new symmetries. By simply varying the packing fraction of the two monolayers, we obtain not only low-coordination structures such as rectangular and honeycomb lattices, but also rhomboidal, hexagonal, and herringbone superlattices which display non-regular tessellations. Molecular dynamics simulations show that these structures are thermodynamically stable and develop from short-ranged repulsive interactions, making them easy to predict, and thus opening new avenues to the rational design of complex patterns

The Short Anxiety Screening Test in Greek: translation and validation

BACKGROUND: The aim of the current study was to assess the reliability and validity of the Greek translation of the Short Anxiety Screening Test (SAST), for use in primary care settings. The scale consists of 10 items and is a brief clinician rating scale for the detection of anxiety disorder in older people, particularly, in the presence of depression. METHODS: The study was performed in two rural primary care settings in Crete. The sample consisted of 99 older (76 ± 6.3 years old) people, who fulfilled the participating criteria. The translation and cultural adaptation of the questionnaire was performed according to international standards. Internal consistency using the Cronbach α coefficient and test-retest reliability using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to assess the reliability of the tool. An exploratory factor analysis using Varimax with Kaiser normalisation (rotation method) was used to examine the structure of the instrument, and for the correlation of the items interitem correlation matrix was applied and assessed with Cronbach α. RESULTS: Translation and backtranslation did not reveal any specific problems. The psychometric properties of the Greek version of the SAST scale in primary care were good. Internal consistency of the instrument was good, the Cronbach α was found to be 0.763 (P < 0.001) and ICC (95% CI) for reproducibility was found to be 0.763 (0.686 to 0.827). Factor analysis revealed three factors with eigenvalues >1.0 accounting for 60% of variance, while the Cronbach α was >0.7 for every item. CONCLUSIONS: The Greek translation of the SAST questionnaire is comparable with that of the original version in terms of reliability, and can be used in primary healthcare research. Its use in clinical practice should be primarily as a screening tool only at this stage, with a follow-up consisting of a detailed interview with the patient, in order to confirm the diagnosis

Transformation products of microcystin-RR with reactive species produced by radiolysis of water.

Microcystins (MCs) are potent cyclic-peptide toxins produced by cyanobacteria during freshwater bloom episodes. They can severely impact drinking water supplies and recreational waters. More than 300 MCs are known today, which are toxic, mainly by inhibiting protein phosphatases. MC-RR is an important congener, as shown in several bloom episodes. There are still serious gaps of knowledge regarding the reaction pathways and transformation products of MCs with reactive species which have a role in advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) or in degradation processes in natural waters. In this study, we applied the principles of radiation chemistry of water to investigate the transformations of the less-studied MC-RR by a range of oxidizing (hydroxyl radical, superoxide ion, hydroperoxyl radical) and reducing (hydrogen atom, hydrated electron) species. We manipulated a steady-state radiation-chemical system using scavengers to investigate and quantify the effects of single species. We used high-resolution mass spectrometry combined with computational and visualization platforms to annotate MS features of transformation products and to compare the single-species reaction pathways. Our results contribute to risk assessment concerning the fate of MCs in water treatment processes and in the environment