The Development and Demise of Child Labour in a Javanese Tea Plantation, 1900–2010

Child labour used to be a common phenomenon in colonial tea plantations at the start of the 20th century. Since the 1970s, however, child labour started slowly to disappear from tea plantations on Java. In this article, we argue that the abolishment of child labour was never the result of improved legislation, but should be understood as part of several interrelated historical processes. Emerging educational opportunities for boys and girls, changes in labour demand, household strategies, diversification of family incomes, ideas on childhood, and technological changes in the production process are key to explain this change. This observation might raise serious considerations for policy makers today who aim to abolish child labour or improve working conditions of children

How Dutch Institutions Enhance the Adaptive Capacity of Society

This report examines the adaptive capacity of the institutional framework of the Netherlands to cope with the impacts of climate change. Historically, institutions have evolved incrementally to deal with existing social problems. They provide norms and rules for collective action and create continuity rather than change. However, the nature of societal problems is changing as a result of the processes of globalization and development. With the progress made in the natural sciences, we are able to predict in advance, to a certain extent, the potential environmental impacts of various human actions on society, for example, climate change. This raises some key questions: Are our institutions capable of dealing with this new knowledge about future impacts and, more importantly, with the impacts themselves? Are our institutions capable of dealing with the inherent uncertainty of the predictions

Institutions for Climate Change : A Method to assess the Inherent Characteristics of Institutions to enable the Adaptive Capacity of Society

This paper addresses the question: How can the inherent characteristics of institutions to stimulate the adaptive capacity of society to climate change from local through to national level be assessed? On the basis of a literature review and several brainstorm sessions, this paper presents six criteria: Variety, learning capacity, space for planned and innovative autonomous action, leadership, availability of resources and fair governance

PRELIMINARY REVISIONS OF SOME GENERA OF MALAYSIAN PAPILIONACEAE I

The revisions have been performed by Miss M. S. van Meeuwen (Pycnospora, Smithia, Uraria), H. P. Nooteboom (Galactia, Moghania, Rhynehosia, Stylosanthes, Zornia), and C. G. G. J. van Steenis (Cyclocarpa, Neocollettia)

Pricing in the hotel and catering sector

A model explaining gross margins in the hotel and catering sector is developed. A cost-mark-up model for the retail sector is used as a starting point. Although we have to reject the hypothesis of mark-up pricing in the hotel and catering sector, the model proves a useful instrument to discriminate between such influences as sales composition, costs and their various components, scale and demand conditions on price setting. Our empirical evidence stems from the Dutch hotel and catering sector (1977 through 1981)

Market Disequilibria and Their Influence on Small Retail Store Pricing

In this paper a quantitative model is developed to explain differences in average store price levels. We assume that stores may operate under different economic regimes, that is, under excess capacity or excess demand. Prices are expected to be higher than average in case of an excess demand regime and lower in an excess capacity situation. Actual information regarding the regime that applies to each individual store is not available. Therefore, we propose to use a so-called 'switching model' with endogenous regime choice to analyse the store price differences. The model developed m the paper is estimated using four largely differing types of stores from the Durch retail trade. These samples consist mainly of small stores

IC12 Werkdocument 4 : Verslag Bijeenkomst IC12-team “Instituties voor adaptatie”, maart 2009, Academiegebouw Utrecht.

De projectgroep IC12 van Klimaat voor Ruimte onderzoekt de adaptiviteit van instituties in relatie tot klimaatverandering. Op basis van theorie is een adaptatiewiel voor de adaptiviteit van instituties ontworpen. We willen graag weten of deze herkend wordt door praktijkdenkers en bruikbaar wordt gevonden, waarbij we ons richten op de adaptiviteit van instituties in de volgende sectoren: natuur, landbouw, ruimtelijke ordening en water

An expanded database of Southern Hemisphere surface sediment dinoflagellate cyst assemblages and their oceanographic affinities

Dinoflagellate cyst assemblages present a valuable proxy to infer paleoceanographic conditions, yet factors influencing geographic distributions of species remain largely unknown, especially in the Southern Ocean. Strong lateral transport, sea-ice dynamics, and a sparse and uneven geographic distribution of surface sediment samples have limited the use of dinocyst assemblages as a quantitative proxy for paleo-environmental conditions such as sea surface temperature (SST), nutrient concentrations, salinity, and sea ice (presence). In this study we present a new set of surface sediment samples (n=66) from around Antarctica, doubling the number of Antarctic-proximal samples to 100 (dataset wsi_100) and increasing the total number of Southern Hemisphere samples to 655 (dataset sh_655). Additionally, we use modelled ocean conditions and apply Lagrangian techniques to all Southern Hemisphere sample stations to quantify and evaluate the influence of lateral transport on the sinking trajectory of microplankton and, with that, to the inferred ocean conditions. k-means cluster analysis on the wsi_100 dataset demonstrates the strong affinity of Selenopemphix antarctica with sea-ice presence and of Islandinium spp. with low-salinity conditions. For the entire Southern Hemisphere, the k-means cluster analysis identifies nine clusters with a characteristic assemblage. In most clusters a single dinocyst species dominates the assemblage. These clusters correspond to well-defined oceanic conditions in specific Southern Ocean zones or along the ocean fronts. We find that, when lateral transport is predominantly zonal, the environmental parameters inferred from the sea floor assemblages mostly correspond to those of the overlying ocean surface. In this case, the transport factor can thus be neglected and will not represent a bias in the reconstructions. Yet, for some individual sites, e.g. deep-water sites or sites under strong-current regimes, lateral transport can play a large role. The results of our study further constrain environmental conditions represented by dinocyst assemblages and the location of Southern Ocean frontal systems.</p