The impact of elderly parents on labour market participation of italian women

The importance of the participation of women in the labour market and source of policy-marking interest in the subject can be considered from various points of view. First, a higher average degree of female education, and the changing of cultural models regarding the division of roles within the family, have resulted in a higher preference by women for work on the market. Second, interest in this issue also aries from the deep changes that have occured, and still occur, within the family structure: the older age at which families are started and the rise of divorce and separation contribute to the spreading of families headed by single women, who cannot rely on a spouse for economic support. Finally, the rise of female employment is vitally important for the sustainability of social protection system, in a context defined by the fast and relevant ageing of the population and by the widespread reduction in fertility rates. The latter phenomenon is extrremely relevant in Italy, where the fertility rate is one of the lowest among OECD countries. According to forecasts, by 2020 the eldeerly dependency index - i.e. the ratio of population above age 64 to the working age population (age rank 15-64) - will surpass 30% (Visco,2000). The low fertility rate implies the impossibility of increasing labour supply through demographic dynamics; an increase in female labour force becomes, therefore, a fundamental tool for the overall growth of employment. The increse in female employment is an important goal also at Eurpean level: briding the gap between the female employment rates in the EU and the USA would increase the number of employed women in Europe by 21 milion (European Commission, 2000), and Eurpean policy makers believe that the EU "must set itself the goal of restoring full employment as the key objective of economic and social policy" (European Commission, 2000). In light of this, the Lisbon strategy states that the female employment rate in the European Union should reach 60% by 2010, up from 51% now. Meeting this goal is an especially difficult task for Italy, where the female employment rate in 2001 was 41.6%. The participation rate was also much lower than 60% - in the same year it was at 48% - indicating how distant the Lisbon target is, even in the absence of unemployment. Indeed, in Italy women employment is low not only because female unemployment rate is high, but also because partecipation rate is small; the latter can be seen as an indication of "volontary" non-employment. Therefore, the partecipation rate is the first issue to address if the goal is to increase female employment. Figure 1 shows the female employment, unemployment and partecipation rates in Italy and in the European Union from 1979 to 2001. From the graph one can infer two especially interesting phenomena. First, there is a marked increase in the rates of female employment and partecipation both in Italy and the EU, while the ratio of unemployed women to working age female population and the unemployment rate do not vary greatly. This suggest that the better employment performance of women over the last 20 years is largely tied to a shifting of preference towards jobs on the market, rather than better demand conditions

Normal and impaired reflexive orienting of attention after central nonpredictive cues

Recent studies suggest that stimuli with directional meaning can trigger lateral shifts of visuospatial attention when centrally presented as noninformative cues. We investigated covert orienting in healthy participants and in a group of 17 right braindamaged patients (9 with hemispatial neglect) comparing arrows, eye gaze, and digits as central nonpredictive cues in a detection task. Orienting effects elicited by arrows and eye gaze were overall consistent in healthy participants and in right brain-damaged patients, whereas digit cues were ineffective. Moreover, patients with neglect showed, at the shortest delay between cue and target, a disengage deficit for arrow cueing whose magnitude was predicted by neglect severity. We conclude that the peculiar form of attentional orienting triggered by the directional meaning of arrow cues presents some features previously thought to characterize only the stimulus-driven (exogenous) orienting to noninformative peripheral cues

YELL/TELL: online community platform for teacher professional development

The community platform Young/Teen English Language Learners (YELL/TELL) was developed to respond to the needs of collaboration and sharing among trainee teachers, school teachers, teacher trainers and researchers in the field of language learning for English FL/SL. The current study focuses on ethnographic observation and data gathered during a workshop for professional development organized for experienced teachers. We compare the evidence of the teachers\u2019 actions, with the analysis of their perception about the professional use of the online environment and their critical reflection about the experience

Tax systems and tax reforms in Latin America: country studies

This paper is part of a wider research concerning taxation systems an reforms carried on ar the Departemnt of Pubic economics of the Uiversity of Pavia -I taly. These country studies refer to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay and are due to eminent native esperts. The papers depict and discuss the tax systems ad reforms in the aforementioned countries since the early 1990 to 2006.Tax Systems; Tas reofoerms; Latin American countries

Tax systems and tax reforms in Latin America: coubtry studies and general issues.

The two papers give a full analysis of Latin American taxaton since 1990 up to day. One paper deals with counry cases. Those examinated regard Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costarica, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay. For each country tax trends are examinated, starting by 1990 or before. Then main istitutional features of the existing tax systems are presented, Next, the main issues concerning tax burden are deepened. Finally the most relevant recent or planned reofms are discussed. The seconnd paper gives an analysis of the American Latina fiscal systems as a whole and deals with isseus like the polical economy of taxation in the area,the measures adopted to attrack Fdi and so on.Tax system, tax reform, America

Effects of empagliflozin on cardiorespiratory fitness and significant interaction of loop diuretics

The effects of empagliflozin on cardiorespiratory fitness in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) are unknown. In this pilot study we determined the effects of empagliflozin 10 mg/d for 4 weeks on peak oxygen consumption (VO2 ) in 15 patients with T2DM and HFrEF. As an exploratory analysis, we assessed whether there was an interaction of the effects of empagliflozin on peak VO2 of loop diuretics. Empagliflozin reduced body weight (-1.7 kg; P = .031), but did not change peak VO2 (from 14.5 mL kg-1 min-1 [12.6-17.8] to 15.8 [12.5-17.4] mL kg-1 min-1 ; P = .95). However, patients using loop diuretics (N = 9) demonstrated an improvement, whereas those without loop diuretics (N = 6) experienced a decrease in peak VO2 (+0.9 [0.1-1.4] vs -0.9 [-2.1 to -0.3] mL kg-1 min-1 ; P = .001), and peak VO2 changes correlated with the baseline daily dose of diuretics (R = +0.83; P < .001). Empagliflozin did not improve peak VO2 in patients with T2DM and HFrEF. However, as a result of exploratory analysis, patients concomitantly treated with loop diuretics experienced a significant improvement in peak VO2

Providing Social Sharing Functionalities in LearnWeb2.0

Marenzi, I., Zerr, S., & Nejdl, W. (2008). Providing Social Sharing Functionalities in LearnWeb2.0. In R. Koper, K. Stefanov & D. Dicheva (Eds). Proceedings of the 5th International TENCompetence Open Workshop "Stimulating Personal Development and Knowledge Sharing" (pp. 9-14). October, 30-31, 2008, Sofia, Bulgaria: TENCompetence Workshop. [For the whole proceedings please see also http://hdl.handle.net/1820/1961 ]Within the TENCompetence project we are working on an open source infrastructure for the creation, storage and exchange of learning objects and knowledge resources. We implemented LearnWeb2.0 - a prototype, which provides appropriate functionalities for the aggregation and annotation of Web 2.0 resources for lifelong competence development activities. This paper focuses on the next steps planned, describing the main functionalities to be implemented in LearnWeb2.0: resource selection, batch annotation and sharing, notification using SpreadCrumbs, resource aggregation using GroupMe and sequencing, motivated by a knowledge sharing scenario at the University of Pavia.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

Energy Performance of Greenhouse for Energy Saving in Buildings

Abstract Nowadays it is necessary to reduce the energy consumptions of the built environment. This problem has led, in the last years, to a series of regulations to promote high performance systems. These can create a new way of building that is aware of the energetic consumptions. Besides the systems to use the solar radiation to produce energy (as active solar systems i.e. solar thermal collectors and photovoltaic modules) there are the passive solar systems such as the greenhouse. The greenhouse systems have a great potential to improve quality of living and energy performance of the buildings. However, it is now important to adopt a valid evaluation method to assess the project efficiency. There are already spreadsheets (for example SERRA 5000, based on Method 5000 and SERRA 832 , based on UNI EN 832/2001) which can evaluate energy performance and verify the effectiveness. The purpose of this research concerns the update of the existing spreadsheets for the winter (UNI EN ISO 13790/2008) and the definition of added spreadsheet for the summer period. In order to test this evaluation method, a case study has been evaluated and discuss