Temporary help services and the volatility of industry output

To gain a better understanding of how fluctuations in output influence firms' decision to hire temporary workers, the authors examine the relationship between output volatility and the use of temporary labor. They find that, all things being equal, temporary employment is higher in states with more volatile industries and lower in states with a relatively high degree of co-movement of industry output fluctuations.Temporary employees ; Employment (Economic theory)

Estimating U.S. metropolitan area export and import competition

This article estimates the extent to which the manufacturing sectors of U.S. metropolitan economies face competition from abroad and, in turn, how much they export overseas.Metropolitan areas - Statistics ; Exports ; Imports ; Manufactures

Midwest manufacturing and trade with China

Manufactures ; Trade

Daily dynamics of cellulase activity in arable soils depending on management practices

The daily dynamics of cellulase activity was studied during 27 days by the cellophane membrane method on soils managed using the conventional high-input farming system (application of mineral fertilizers and pesticides) and the biological conservation farming system (application of organic fertilizers alone) in a microfield experiment. The regular oscillatory dynamics of the cellulase activity were revealed and confirmed by the harmonic (Fourier) analysis. The oscillatory dynamics of the cellulase activity had a self-oscillatory nature and was not directly caused by the disturbing impacts of both the uncontrolled (natural) changes in the temperature and moisture (rainfall) and the controlled ones (the application of different fertilizers). The disturbing impacts affected the oscillation amplitude of the cellulase activity but not the frequency (periods) of the oscillations. The periodic oscillations of the cellulase activity were more significant in the soil under the high-input management compared to the soil under the biological farming syste

Assessment of the Average Annual Methane Flux from the Soils of Russia

The work presented in this paper deals with analyses of the net annual average fluxes between soils and the atmosphere of the territory of Russia

Quantifying the effect of media limitations on outbreak data in a global online web-crawling epidemic intelligence system, 2008–2011

Background: This is the first study quantitatively evaluating the effect that media-related limitations have on data from an automated epidemic intelligence system. Methods: We modeled time series of HealthMap's two main data feeds, Google News and Moreover, to test for evidence of two potential limitations: first, human resources constraints, and second, high-profile outbreaks “crowding out” coverage of other infectious diseases. Results: Google News events declined by 58.3%, 65.9%, and 14.7% on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, respectively, relative to other weekdays. Events were reduced by 27.4% during Christmas/New Years weeks and 33.6% lower during American Thanksgiving week than during an average week for Google News. Moreover data yielded similar results with the addition of Memorial Day (US) being associated with a 36.2% reduction in events. Other holiday effects were not statistically significant. We found evidence for a crowd out phenomenon for influenza/H1N1, where a 50% increase in influenza events corresponded with a 4% decline in other disease events for Google News only. Other prominent diseases in this database – avian influenza (H5N1), cholera, or foodborne illness – were not associated with a crowd out phenomenon. Conclusions: These results provide quantitative evidence for the limited impact of editorial biases on HealthMap's web-crawling epidemic intelligence

Субъективное благополучие и доверие в контексте психологической безопасности в современной России и других европейских странах

The article applies a multidisciplinary approach and investigates the viability of using an integrative characteristic of psychological security to assess macrosocial situation regionally and nationally. The paper is based on the data drawn from European Values Study (EVS). The countries and Russian federal districts were ranged according to the following parameters: subjective well-being, generalized trust, institutional trust, and psychological security. The results suggest that, compared with residents of other EVS member countries, the level of subjective well-being among Russians is extremely low. Only Bulgaria has a lower position. On the other pole of the scale are Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. In terms of generalized trust the list of 30 countries is headed by Denmark, with Albania at the bottom of the list. Unfortunately, Russia cannot be found among the countries with the highest levels of generalized trust. By European standards, Russia has an average level of institutional trust in the list, with Bulgaria at the bottom, and Norway remaining and the top. Of all participant countries, seven have lower levels of psychological security than Russia; Bulgaria and Albania have the lowest standings; the most favorable situation is in Finland and Norway. The study also reveals leaders and outsiders among Russian federal districts and describes strong and weak points of psychological security in Russia