Achieving Skill Mobility in the ASEAN Economic Community: Challenges, Opportunity, and Policy Implications

Despite clear aspirations by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to create an effective and transparent framework to facilitate movements among skilled professionals within the ASEAN by December 2015, progress has been slow and uneven. This report examines the challenges ASEAN member states face in achieving the goal of greater mobility for the highly skilled, including hurdles in recognizing professional qualifications, opening up access to certain jobs, and a limited willingness by professionals to move due to perceived cultural, language, and socioeconomic differences. The cost of these barriers is staggering and could reduce the region’s competitiveness in the global market. This report launches a multiyear effort by the Asian Development Bank and the Migration Policy Institute to better understand the issues and develop strategies to gradually overcome the problems. It offers a range of policy recommendations that have been discussed among experts in a high-level expert meeting, taking into account best practices locally and across the region

Tourism income and economic growth in Greece: Empirical evidence from their cyclical components

This paper examines the relationship between the cyclical components of Greek GDP and international tourism income for Greece for the period 1976–2004. Using spectral analysis the authors find that cyclical fluctuations of GDP have a length of about nine years and that international tourism income has a cycle of about seven years. The volatility of tourism income is more than eight times the volatility of the Greek GDP cycle. VAR analysis shows that the cyclical component of tourism income is significantly influencing the cyclical component of GDP in Greece. The findings support the tourism-led economic growth hypothesis and are of particular interest and importance to policy makers, financial analysts and investors dealing with the Greek tourism industry

Iron(II) complexes of tridentate indazolylpyridine ligands: enhanced spin-crossover hysteresis and ligand-based fluorescence.

Reaction of 2,6-difluoropyridine with 2 equiv of indazole and NaH at room temperature affords a mixture of 2,6-bis(indazol-1-yl)pyridine (1-bip), 2-(indazol-1-yl)-6-(indazol-2-yl)pyridine (1,2-bip), and 2,6-bis(indazol-2-yl)pyridine (2-bip), which can be separated by solvent extraction. A two-step procedure using the same conditions also affords both 2-(indazol-1-yl)-6-(pyrazol-1-yl)pyridine (1-ipp) and 2-(indazol-2-yl)-6-(pyrazol-1-yl)pyridine (2-ipp). These are all annelated analogues of 2,6-di(pyrazol-1-yl)pyridine, an important ligand for spin-crossover complexes. Iron(II) complexes [Fe(1-bip)2](2+), [Fe(1,2-bip)2](2+), and [Fe(1-ipp)2](2+) are low-spin at room temperature, reflecting sterically imposed conformational rigidity of the 1-indazolyl ligands. In contrast, the 2-indazolyl complexes [Fe(2-bip)2](2+) and [Fe(2-ipp)2](2+) are high-spin in solution at room temperature, whereas salts of [Fe(2-bip)2](2+) exhibit thermal spin transitions in the solid state. Notably, [Fe(2-bip)2][BF4]2·2MeNO2 adopts a terpyridine embrace lattice structure and undergoes a spin transition near room temperature after annealing, resulting in thermal hysteresis that is wider than previously observed for this structure type (T1/2 = 266 K, ΔT = 16-20 K). This reflects enhanced mechanical coupling between the cations in the lattice through interdigitation of their ligand arms, which supports a previously proposed structure/function relationship for spin-crossover materials with this form of crystal packing. All of the compounds in this work exhibit blue fluorescence in solution under ambient conditions. In most cases, the ligand-based emission maxima are slightly red shifted upon complexation, but there is no detectable correlation between the emission maximum and the spin state of the iron centers

The economic effects and distributional implications of economic reform policies on the Indonesian economy A CGE approach

Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN045285 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Induction of protective antitumor immunity through attenuation of ERAAP function

The endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase associated with Ag processing, ERAAP, plays an important role in the trimming of antigenic peptides for presentation at the cell surface complexed with MHC class I molecules. Tumors express varying levels of ERAAP, highlighting a possible mechanism of immune-evasion through alteration of the peptide repertoire. Using the CT26 tumor model, we investigated the effects of ERAAP modulation on peptide presentation and the use of ERAAP inhibition as an antitumor therapy. We show that generation of the cross-protective tumor Ag GSW11 in the colorectal carcinoma CT26 is increased when ERAAP expression is reduced. BALB/c mice with reduced ERAAP expression challenged with CT26 induced protective immunity that was mediated by CD8+ T cells. This antitumor immunity also protected mice when rechallenged with wild-type CT26 tumor; strong CD8+ T cell responses to GSW11 were observed, despite its presentation being considerably lower. Furthermore, boosting the tumor immunogenicity through inhibition of ERAAP function with the small molecule inhibitor leucinethiol in vitro, or in established tumors in vivo, abrogated tumor growth and prolonged survival. Thus, our results highlight the promising possibility of using modulation of ERAAP to generate protective antitumor responses as a strategy for cancer immunotherapy