The Review of Economic Performance and Social Progress 2002: Towards a Social Understanding of Productivity

In this chapter, Richard Harris points out that a traditional view has been that there is an inherent conflict between economic efficiency and social equality, a view neatly summarized in the title of Okun's famous book, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Trade-off (1975). This view gained renewed currency in the policy debates of the 1990s, as commentators contrasted the economic performance of Europe and the U.S. in that decade. This view has been challenged both by cross-national empirical studies and by theoretical advances. Recent research seems to suggest that there is no efficiency-equity trade-off and that social policy and greater equality may actually contribute to higher productivity growth. Richard Harris surveys two streams of recent research that point in this direction. The chapter also examines new theoretical literature, especially the new endogenous growth theory that suggests that increases in inequality can hurt growth.Equity, Efficiency, Productivity, Labour Productivity, Labor Productivity, Growth, Income, Inequality, Equality, Social Policy, Education, Health, Welfare, Redistribution, Social Cohesion, Cohesion, Investment, Innovation, Competition, Living Standards

AN IMPROVED ESTIMATOR FOR ASSESSING THE MEASURE OF AGREEMENT WITH A GOLD STANDARD

St. Laurent (1998, Biometrics 54, 537-545) developed a measure of agreement for method comparison studies in which an approximate method of measurement is compared to a gold standard method of measurement. The measure of agreement proposed was shown to be related to a population intraclass correlation coefficient. This paper develops a family of estimators for the measure of agreement based on pivotal quantities. A blend of two particular members of the family is suggested as an estimator itself. In general, this estimator outperforms the maximum likelihood estimator in terms of bias and mean-squared error

Low-temperature muon spin rotation studies of the monopole charges and currents in Y doped Ho2Ti2O7

In the ground state of Ho2Ti2O7 spin ice, the disorder of the magnetic moments follows the same rules as the proton disorder in water ice. Excitations take the form of magnetic monopoles that interact via a magnetic Coulomb interaction. Muon spin rotation has been used to probe the low-temperature magnetic behaviour in single crystal Ho2−xYxTi2O7 (x = 0, 0.1, 1, 1.6 and 2). At very low temperatures, a linear field dependence for the relaxation rate of the muon precession λ(B), that in some previous experiments on Dy2Ti2O7 spin ice has been associated with monopole currents, is observed in samples with x = 0, and 0.1. A signal from the magnetic fields penetrating into the silver sample plate due to the magnetization of the crystals is observed for all the samples containing Ho allowing us to study the unusual magnetic dynamics of Y doped spin ice

Population et urbanisation au Québec et au Canada, XIXe et XXe siècles

La croissance urbaine rapide de la fin du XIXe siècle et du premier tiers du XXe a suscité nombre de travaux sur un large éventail de sujets, notamment en rapport avec les processus démographiques associés à l'urbanisation: formation et évolution des populations des villes, transition démographique, structure et composition des ménages, rôles des membres des familles, logement, etc... Au Québec en particulier, les études sur les populations urbaines apparaissent plus fragmentaires. Si des recherches récentes ou en cours contribuent à une meilleure compréhension de l'urbanisation des Canadiens français (sinon de la franco-canadianisation des villes québécoises), il reste encore largement place pour des études englobantes de la croissance rapide qu'ont connue les villes entre 1860 et 1930. Ainsi est née l'idée d'un atelier sur cet objet éminemment complexe et interdisciplinaire que sont les populations urbaines du passé. Il visait à proposer quelques jalons quant aux pistes de recherche à explorer sur le sujet: jalons liés aux questionnements et problématiques, jalons méthodologiques sur les façons de faire, notamment par l'exploitation des données tirées des grandes séries documentaires tels les recensements nominatifs. Ce livret regroupe les contributions de quatre des huit conférenciers invités à lancer les échanges sur l'un ou l'autre des sujets proposés aux participants. Leur contenu offre diverses pistes susceptibles d'aider à mieux comprendre à échelle fine ce phénomène fondamental qu'est l'urbanisation des populations contemporaines

An Optical Velocity for the Phoenix Dwarf Galaxy

We present the results of a VLT observing program carried out in service mode using FORS1 on ANTU in Long Slit mode to determine the optical velocities of nearby low surface brightness galaxies. As part of our program of service observations we obtained long-slit spectra of several members of the Phoenix dwarf galaxy from which we derive an optical helio-centric radial velocity of -13 +/- 9km/s. This agrees very well with the velocity of the most promising of the HI clouds seen around Phoenix, which has a helio-centric velocity of -23 km/s, but is significantly different to the recently published optical heliocentric velocity of Phoenix of -52 +/- 6 km/s of Gallart et al. (2001).Comment: Aceepted for publication in MNRA

The potential of new tumor endothelium-specific markers for the development of antivascular therapy.

Angiogenesis is a hallmark of solid tumors, and disruption of tumor vasculature is an active anticancer therapy in some cases. Several proteins expressed on the surface of tumor endothelium have been identified during the last decade. However, due to the expression in both physiological and tumor angiogenesis, only a few targets have been developed for clinical therapeutics. By thorough SAGE analysis of mouse endothelial cells isolated from various normal resting tissues, regenerating liver, and liver-metastasized tumor, Seaman and colleagues in this issue of Cancer Cell have demonstrated organ-specific endothelial markers, physiological angiogenesis endothelial markers, and tumor endothelial markers and revealed striking differences between physiological and pathological angiogenesis

Some considerations for high‐order ‘incremental remap’‐based transport schemes: edges, reconstructions, and area integration

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96654/1/fld3703.pd