The Unemployment Route to Versatility

In this paper we document a common sense idea: When an individual is searching for a new job, the longer it takes the more s/he will be available to adapt her/his skills, often with a worsening in status and/or wage. We used a dataset of administrative source, containing a sample of individuals' working careers in the private sector, in Italy, years 1985-1996. We do not observe directly the search activity of individuals: What we observe is the re-entry time elapsing from the separation from a job spell, to the association to a new one. The information collected about the job spells, however, is quite rich, and allows a thorough analysis of the main features of job changes. If we do not take into account re-entry times into dependent work, the inter-industry mobility we report is relatively limited, even at high levels of disaggregation. Still (roughly) 50% of job changes occurs within the same 3-digit Ateco sectors, and without changing skill/status. If we condition on re-entry times, we find a positive effect on the probabilities of changing sector in the first months of the search, while for longer re-entry times, and of worsening the working status and wage.Job matching; Job changes; Re-entry times; Inter sectoral mobility; Wage dynamics; Linked employer-employee datasets.

Multilayer network decoding versatility and trust

In the recent years, the multilayer networks have increasingly been realized as a more realistic framework to understand emergent physical phenomena in complex real world systems. We analyze a massive time-varying social data drawn from the largest film industry of the world under multilayer network framework. The framework enables us to evaluate the versatility of actors, which turns out to be an intrinsic property of lead actors. Versatility in dimers suggests that working with different types of nodes are more beneficial than with similar ones. However, the triangles yield a different relation between type of co-actor and the success of lead nodes indicating the importance of higher order motifs in understanding the properties of the underlying system. Furthermore, despite the degree-degree correlations of entire networks being neutral, multilayering picks up different values of correlation indicating positive connotations like trust, in the recent years. Analysis of weak ties of the industry uncovers nodes from lower degree regime being important in linking Bollywood clusters. The framework and the tools used herein may be used for unraveling the complexity of other real world systems.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Factors Affecting the Development of Workforce Versatility

Among all strategies supporting the firms' flexibility and agility, the development of human resources versatility holds a promising place. This article presents an investigation of the factors affecting the development of this flexibility lever, related to the problem of planning and scheduling industrial activities, taking into account two dimensions of flexibility: the modulation of working time, which provides the company with fluctuating work capacities, and the versatility of operators: for all the multi-skilled workers, we adopt a dynamic vision of their competences. Therefore, this model takes into account the evolution of their skills over time, depending on how much they were put in practice in previous periods. The model was solved by using an approach relying on genetic algorithm that used an indirect encoding to build the chromosome genotype, and then a serial scheduling scheme is adopted to build the solution

Cryogenic flux-concentrator

Flux concentrator has high primary to secondary coupling efficiency enabling it to produce high magnetic fields. The device provides versatility in pulse duration, magnetic field strengths and power sources

Versatility of Bicoronal flap approach in Head and neck surgeries

Bicoronal approach popularised by Tessier is one of the versatile approaches for skulland frontal region (1-6).In this article we present our experience regarding Bicoronal flapapproach in 3 different cases. Each patient had different pathologies in frontal region forwhich the same approach had been used. We also describe in detail about the incision, itsindications and contra indications, advantages and disadvantages. Incision was made in hairbearing area. Hence post operatively, cosmetic results were appealing in all the patients 9. Itpreserves the supraorbital neurovascular bundle, so complaints related to that are avoided. Inthis article, we discuss about the individual patient, merits and demerits of this particularapproach in each patient. 

Trace-gas metabolic versatility of the facultative methanotroph Methylocella silvestris

The climate-active gas methane is generated both by biological processes and by thermogenic decomposition of fossil organic material, which forms methane and short-chain alkanes, principally ethane, propane and butane1, 2. In addition to natural sources, environments are exposed to anthropogenic inputs of all these gases from oil and gas extraction and distribution. The gases provide carbon and/or energy for a diverse range of microorganisms that can metabolize them in both anoxic3 and oxic zones. Aerobic methanotrophs, which can assimilate methane, have been considered to be entirely distinct from utilizers of short-chain alkanes, and studies of environments exposed to mixtures of methane and multi-carbon alkanes have assumed that disparate groups of microorganisms are responsible for the metabolism of these gases. Here we describe the mechanism by which a single bacterial strain, Methylocella silvestris, can use methane or propane as a carbon and energy source, documenting a methanotroph that can utilize a short-chain alkane as an alternative to methane. Furthermore, during growth on a mixture of these gases, efficient consumption of both gases occurred at the same time. Two soluble di-iron centre monooxygenase (SDIMO) gene clusters were identified and were found to be differentially expressed during bacterial growth on these gases, although both were required for efficient propane utilization. This report of a methanotroph expressing an additional SDIMO that seems to be uniquely involved in short-chain alkane metabolism suggests that such metabolic flexibility may be important in many environments where methane and short-chain alkanes co-occur

What tone teaches us about language

In ‘Tone: Is it different?’ (Hyman 2011a), I suggested that ‘tone is like segmental phonology in every way—only more so’, emphasizing that there are some things that only tone can do. In this presidential address my focus extends beyond phonology, specifically addressing what tone tells us about the integration (vs. compartmentalization) of grammar. I discuss some rather striking examples that demonstrate problems for the strict separation of phonology, morphology, and syntax, each time posing the question, ‘What else is like this outside of tone?’. A particularly interesting property that is strictly limited to tone is what I term syntagmatic relativity. I suggest that the uniqueness of tonal phenomena is due to the versatility of pitch, which can be manipulated with a wide range of linguistic functions. Given this versatility, I end by considering the question, ‘Why isn’t tone universal?’.*