Unemployment, skills, and incentives - an overview of the safety net system in the Slovak Republic

The author studies the potential disincentive effects of unemployment insurance, and social assistance payments on the duration of unemployment in the Slovak Republic. For this purpose, she uses new, very detailed data on receipt of benefits from the Unemployment Registry (1990-2000) and the Labor Force Survey (1996, 1999, and 2000). She employs a flexible methodology that makes it possible to identify behavioral changes that may occur as the quantity, and duration of the benefits change over time, as well as behavioral differences between recipients, and non-recipients. This approach, she argues, constitutes a more accurate test for the presence of incentive, and disincentive effects, than those presented before in the literature. She expands the scope of her analysis, to study the effect of receiving benefits on several outcomes in addition to exit from unemployment (for example, job seeking behavior, and duration of unemployment). She finds important behavioral differences between those who receive benefits, and those who do not. Recipients tend to spend more time unemployed, but they also look for employment more actively than their counterparts, have more demanding preferences with respected to their future jobs, and find jobs in the private sector more often. In addition, these jobs turn out to be better matches than those obtained by non-recipients (with the quality of the match measured by its duration). Moreover, the behavior of recipients varies tremendously depending on whether they are actually receiving benefits, or not. Once their benefits are exhausted, they exit the Unemployment Registry at a higher rate, search more actively, and move into private sector jobs more often. So when these workers are used as their own control group, there is strong evidence that both unemployment insurance and social assistance, or support have important disincentive effects, not only on the duration of unemployment, but also on job seeking behavior, and on exit to employment. Analyzing the effect of unemployment insurance, and social assistance on poverty, the author concludes that these programs bear most of the burden in the fight against poverty. But this protection does not come free, since significant disincentive effects are associated with receiving benefits. Thus any reform plan should take into account both of these aspects of the programs, along with the government's goals for the programs.Labor Policies,Services&Transfers to Poor,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Youth and Governance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Safety Nets and Transfers,Services&Transfers to Poor

Fermion family recurrences in the Dyson-Schwinger formalism

We study the multiple solutions of the truncated propagator Dyson-Schwinger equation for a simple fermion theory with Yukawa coupling to a scalar field. Upon increasing the coupling constant $g$, other parameters being fixed, more than one non-perturbative solution breaking chiral symmetry becomes possible and we find these numerically. These ``recurrences'' appear as a mechanism to generate different fermion generations as quanta of the same fundamental field in an interacting field theory, without assuming any composite structure. The number of recurrences or flavors is reduced to a question about the value of the Yukawa coupling, and has no special profound significance in the Standard Model. The resulting mass function can have one or more nodes and the measurement that potentially detects them can be thought of as a collider-based test of the virtual dispersion relation $E=\sqrt{p^2+M(p^2)^2}$ for the charged lepton member of each family. This requires three independent measurements of the charged lepton's energy, three-momentum and off-shellness. We illustrate how this can be achieved for the (more difficult) case of the tau lepton

Oribatid assemblies of tropical high mountains on some points of the “Gondwana-Bridge” – a case study

This work is the first part of a series of studies, which introduces the methodological possibilities of coenological and zoogeographical indication and – following the climate, vegetation and elevation zones – the pattern-describing analysis of the main Oribatid sinusia of the world explored till our days.This current work is a case-study, which displays the comparison of 9 examination sites from 3 different geographical locations. On each location, three vegetation types have been examined: a plain rain-forest, a mossforest and a mountainous paramo. Analyses are based on the hitherto non-published genus-level database and coenological tables of the deceased János Balogh professor. Occurrence of 18 genera is going to be published as new data for the given zoogeographical region

Off and running? Technology, trade and the rising demand for skilled workers in Latin America

The authors describe the evolution of relative wages in five Latin American countries-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. They use repeated cross-sections of household surveys, and decompose the evolution of relative wages into factors associated with changes in relative supply and relative demand. The authors have three main conclusions: 1) Increases in the relative wages of the most skilled (university-educated) workers took place concurrently with increases in their relative abundance in all of the countries except Brazil. This is strong evidence of increases in the demand for skilled workers. 2) Increases in the wage bill of skilled workers occurred largely within sectors, and in the same sectors in different countries, which is consistent with skill-biased technological change. 3) Trade appears to be an important transmission mechanism. Increases in the demand for the most skilled workers took place at a time when countries in Latin America considerably increased the penetration of imports, including imports of capital goods. The authors show that changes in the volume and research and development intensity of imports are significantly related to changes in the demand for more skilled workers in Latin America. Their research complements earlier work on the effects of technology transmitted through trade on productivity and on the demand for skilled labor.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Public Health Promotion,Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Inequality,Curriculum&Instruction,Environmental Economics&Policies

Origins of neotropical leafy Hepaticae

The neotropical hepatic flora, predominantly constituted by members of the Jungermanniales and Metzgeriales, includes a disproportionate number of genera which are endemic (over 38) and a number which evidently originated here but have shown slight and in a geological sense, modern dispersal by solitary species. Endemism is confined almost to the Jungermanniales; it is to a large degree of a unique sort: confined to highly apomorphic derivatives, often extremely reduced, sometimes confervoid or thalloid (aside from 'normal' sexual branches). These endemics are derivatives of basically cool-Gondwanalandic suborders, chiefly Lepidoziineae and Cephaloziineae which, in the Antipodes today include a wide range of plesiomorphic taxa. The highest proportion of endemic genera, often stenotypic (1-3 species each) occurs in the upper montane zone: from upper Andean forest to páramo, to the edge of permanent snow and ice; a smaller number occurs at upper elevations of the Guyana Shield, but more occur in the riverine systems that dissect this shield. The taxa found there (i.a., Zoopsidella, Pteropsiella, Schusterolejeunea, Cephalantholejeunea) are among the most apomorphic of all hepatics. The amount of endemism is shown to be higher than in any comparable region of the globe. It is assumed that this is owing to: (a) isolation, exceeding 40 m.y. and probably exceeding 60 m.y.; (b) continuous tectonic activity, preserving the 'raw' and 'pioneer' habitats which are necessary for the survival of 'fugitive', 'shuttle' and other types of pioneer taxa; (c) the antiquity of the Guyana Shield and its riverine system; (d) creation of striking ecological gradients, many biotic islands; (e) fluctuation in extent and degree of isolation of these 'islands', leading to (f) rapid evolution due to genetic drift and perhaps enhanced selection pressures. It is concluded that part of the complexity of the flora is due to preservation of some elements on the old Guyana Shield but most is due to relatively rapid evolution during Tertiary times. A final contributing element has been the fact that movement of the South American plate has been primarily from east to west, so that the relevant land area has not been rafted into regions with very different climatic parameters: the degree of extinction seen in, e.g., India and Australia is not evident here. It is concluded that the amount of endemism seen, and its extreme kinds, 'need' in excess of the 40-60 m.y. time span which seems available. In particular, the large number of high elevation endemics, some (such as Ruizanthus) very isolated, cannot be satisfactorily explained by assuming their evolution in the few million years available since alpine regions were created by the rise of the Andes. It is almost necessary to conclude that limited 'pre-Andes' must have existed and that the ancestors of the isolated taxa seen today in alpine loci in Colombia and Venezuela originated elsewhere. The other side of the outlined scenario is that with the near-total isolation of tropical America until the Andes were elevated, and until the Pliocene connection to North America arose, one would expect to see few and scattered intruders from cool-Gondwanalandic areas and from Laurasia. The modern flora reflects exactly this

New bryophyte taxon records for tropical countries 1

This is the first in a series of papers listing new records, which will be published whenever sufficient new records have been found. The taxa are arranged by countries for an easier evaluation, e.g. updates of checklists. The initials of the contributor for each record is shown in square brackets after the record, and these initials are interpreted at the end of the paper

Taxonomic results of the Bryotrop expedition to Zaire and Rwanda : 12., Metzgeriaceae, Plagiochilaceae, Lejeuneaceae (the nonepiphyllous collections)

Vanden Berghen (1948) who himself described two new species (1951, 1953) and supplied a key for the Central African taxa (Vanden Berghen 1960). Kuwahara described Metzgeria agnewii from the Aberdare Mts. in Kenya (1973), established the classification of subgeneric taxa (1978) and synonymized several African taxa with other known species (1986), so the known distribution of several African Metzgeria considerably widened

A first checklist of the lichen-forming fungi of the Venezuelan Andes

Basing on an evaluation of the literature and some unpublished collections, 745 taxa of lichen forming-fungi are reported from the Venezuelan Andes, including 10 infraspecific taxa. Of these taxa 37 are new records for Venezuela: Actinoplaca vulgaris (Müll. Arg.) Vezda & Poelt, Asterothyrium decipiens (Rehm) R. Sant., Calopadia foliicola (Fée) Vezda, C. fusca (Müll. Arg.) Vezda, C. phyllogena (Müll. Arg.) Vezda, Chrysothrix chlorina (Ach.) J. R. Laundon, Cystocoleus ebeneus (Dillwyn) Thwaites, Diploschistes scruposus (Schreb.) Norm., Echinoplacaleucotrichoides (Vain.) R. Sant., Fellhanerabouteillei (Desm.) Vezda, F.dominicana (Vain.) Vezda, F. fuscatula (Müll. Arg.) Vezda, F. sublecanorina (Nyl.) Vezda, Gyalectidium filicinum Müll. Arg., Lecidea limosa Ach., Lepraria neglecta Auct., Ochrolechia africana Vain., Peltigera vainioi Gyelnik, Phyllobathelium nigrum R. Sant. & Tibell, Phyllophialealba R. Sant., Polymeridiumalbidum (Müll. Arg.) R. C. Harris, Porina epiphylla (Fée) Fée, Racodium rupestre Pers., Ramalina asahinae W. Culb. & C. Culb., R. calcarata Krog & Swinsc., R. puiggarii Müll Arg., R. rectangularis Nyl., Rhizoplaca melanophthalma (DC.) Leuckert & Poelt, Strigula antillarum (Fée) Müll. Arg., S. platypoda (Müll. Arg.) R. C. Harris, Tapellaria epiphylla (Müll. Arg.) R. Sant., T.nana (Fée) R. Sant., Tephromela aglaea (Sommerf.) Hertel & Rambold, Tricharia vainioi R. Sant., Trichothelium epiphyllum Müll. Arg., T. bipindense F. Schill. and Vezdaea foliicola Sérusiaux. Another 4 species are new records only for the Venezuelan Andes: Dimerellaepiphylla (Müll. Arg.) Malme, Porinaatrocoerulea Müll. Arg., Ramalina peruviana Ach. and Woessia apiahica (Müll. Arg.) Sérus. A list of synonyms used in the consulted literature is added. Four new combinations are proposed: Dictyonema zahlbruckneri (Schiffn.) V. Marcano, Heterodermia tropica (Kurok.) Sipman, Parmelinopsis cleefii (Sipman) V. Marcano & Sipman and Phyllobaeislinearis (De Vries) V. Marcano & Sipman

Seasonal changes in the population dynamics of Aurelia aurita in Thau lagoon

Seasonal dynamics of the scyphomedusae, Aurelia aurita, was investigated twice a month from January 2010 to June 2011 and related to environmental conditions in Thau lagoon, southwestern Mediterranean Sea. Strobilation, indicated by the presence of 1 mm ephyrae, occurred from November to the middle of April. Maximum abundances up to 330 ind.100 m-3 were reached in May 2011, few weeks after the last ephyrae release. The population declines afterwards steadily until disappearing from the water column. Concurrent with increased water temperature and mesozooplankton predation during May, growth rates increased from 0.04 mm.day-1 to a peak of 4.5 mm.day-1, with a maximum bell diameter of 11.3 cm reached on the 7th May. During the study period, there was no advection of A. aurita between Thau lagoon and the coastal waters