Lump sum bonuses in union contracts : semantic change or step toward a new wage determination system?

rev"Preliminary draft. April 1989 -- Revised September 1989."Series statement handwritten on cover -- from publisher's listIncludes bibliographical references (p. 31)Financial support from the National Science Foundation and the Ente "Luigi Einaudi, ", Rom

Imagination in thought and action

In this thesis I ask what the role of imagination is in our representation of the world and interactions with it. A standard answer to this question is that imagination has no direct role: imagination\u2019s proper function is rather to allow us to disengage from reality; its motivating power, if it has any, is basically limited to children\u2019s pretence. I argue that this standard answer is mistaken: imagination\u2019s role is much larger than that. I consider a number of cases \u2013 including cases of superstitious and religious actions, or so-called \u2018expressive behaviours\u2019 \u2013 where we are moved to act by representational states that are not sensitive to real-world evidence, nor integrated in our whole system of beliefs. I argue that at least some degree of sensitivity to evidence and inferential integration are necessary for a state to count as belief; hence the representational states that play the relevant motivating role in the cases I consider cannot be beliefs. I suggest that imagination is the best alternative candidate. This supports an account of imagination according to which its functional profile is the same of belief with respect to emotional and behavioural outputs, while it critically differs from belief with respect to cognitive inputs (and related normative constraints). Imaginings dispose us to act and react in the same ways in which belief do; but they are not (nor ought be) formed and maintained in response to real-world evidence as beliefs are (and ought to be). On this view, many cognitions that are standardly classified as beliefs \u2013 like superstitious, ideological and religious \u2018beliefs\u2019 \u2013 turn out to be better understood as imaginings. Imagination does not just allow us to \u2018escape\u2019 from reality into fictional worlds, but plays a key, direct role in our representation of (and practical engagement with) reality

Comment on: Abou-Ali, H., El-Azony, H., El-Laithy, H., Haughton, J. and Khandker, S., 2010. Evaluating the impact of Egyptian Social Fund for Development Programmes. Journal of Development Effectiveness, 2 (4), 521–555

PRIFPRI3; ISIDG

Direction Detector on an Excitable Field: Field Computation with Coincidence Detection

Living organisms process information without any central control unit and without any ruling clock. We have been studying a novel computational strategy that uses a geometrically arranged excitable field, i.e., "field computation." As an extension of this research, in the present article we report the construction of a "direction detector" on an excitable field. Using a numerical simulation, we show that the direction of a input source signal can be detected by applying the characteristic as a "coincidence detector" embedded on an excitable field. In addition, we show that this direction detection actually works in an experiment using an excitable chemical system. These results are discussed in relation to the future development of "field computation."Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Variation of applied field angular dependence of critical current density in YBCO thin films against deposition temperature and composition

AbstractFor the magnetic flux pinning in YBa2Cu3Oy (YBCO) thin films, artificial pinning centers (APC) like BaZrO3 and BaSnO3 nanorods act effectively when magnetic fields are applied parallel to the c-axis of the YBCO thin films. However, it is necessary that APC exist into a three dimentional shape and random distribution in order to enhance Jc against all angle range of applied magnetic fields. In this study, we reported YBCO thin films with low anisotropy of Jc against the magnetic field applied angle. As a result, using off-stoichiometric target composition of Y: Ba: Cu = 1: 2: 3.4 and high substrate temperatures, the YBCO thin films which were prepared by pulsed laser deposition method at more than 890°C showed low anisotropic Jc, since the films included pinning centers acting against wide angle range of applied field

Possible Approach to Esophageal Lung with Long Tracheobronchial Gap

Esophageal lung is a rare bronchopulmonary foregut malformation characterized by an anomalous origin of one of the main bronchi which arises from the esophagus. Less than 30 cases are reported in the literature. Therefore, there are no standardized guidelines for the treatment of this condition. We report a case of right esophageal lung diagnosed in a neonate. The patient was treated with thoracoscopic closure of the ectopic main bronchus in the neonatal period, followed by delayed pneumonectomy at 5 months of age. No prosthetic substitute was implanted in the ipsilateral hemithorax after pneumonectomy. The patient is now 4 years old and doing well, postpneumonectomy syndrome was never observed. Our strategy and the possible alternatives are discussed here

Cognitive and noncognitive costs of day care at age 0-2 for children in advantaged families

Electronically published December 12, 2019Exploiting admission thresholds to the Bologna day care system, we show using a regression discontinuity (RD) design that one additional day care month at age 0–2 reduces intelligence quotient by 0.5% (4.7% of a standard deviation) at age 8–14 in a relatively affluent population. Themagnitude of this negative effect increases with family income. Similar negative impacts are found for personality traits. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis frompsychology that children in day care experience fewer one-to-one interactions with adults, with negative effects in families where such interactions are of higher quality.We embed this hypothesis in a model that lends structure to our RD design.Margherita Fort, Andrea Ichino, Giulio Zanell

The subconvexity problem for \GL_{2}

Generalizing and unifying prior results, we solve the subconvexity problem for the $L$-functions of \GL_{1} and \GL_{2} automorphic representations over a fixed number field, uniformly in all aspects. A novel feature of the present method is the softness of our arguments; this is largely due to a consistent use of canonically normalized period relations, such as those supplied by the work of Waldspurger and Ichino--Ikeda.Comment: Almost final version to appear in Publ. Math IHES. References updated