A network-based analysis of the impact of structural damage on urban accessibility following a disaster: the case of the seismically damaged Port Au Prince and Carrefour urban road networks

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 led to an unprecedented effort in collecting and providing geographical information in support of humanitarian aid. Although most of the compiled datasets and generated maps were able to provide specific and detailed information regarding the location of damaged buildings and road interruptions, none or little information was available to describe the accessibility—or otherwise—of the urban space. Here we try to offer an alternative method to define the urban accessibility landscape in the aftermath of earthquake damage, by combining simple graph theory concepts and GIS-based spatial analysis to assess how the urban space accessibility decreases when the road network is damaged.     

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: Data Collection Design and Implementation 1998–2003

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research program was designed as a comprehensive assessment of the role of entrepreneurship in national economic growth. The conceptual model reflected in a wide range of factors associated with national variations in entrepreneurial activity and the major contextual features. Empirical tests of the many relationships in the model required four major data collection activities: adult population surveys, unstructured interviews with national experts, self-administered questionnaires completed by national experts, and assembly of relevant standardized measures from existing cross-national data sets. Adult population surveys were implemented to identify those entrepreneurially active, which required a set of precise criteria and careful processing to ensure harmonized counts and prevalence rates across 41 countries. Existing evidence on measures of reliability indicates that the measures met contemporary standards and the project was cost-effective.     

Job mobility and the gender wage gap in Italy

This paper investigates the contribution of gender differences in job mobility to the emergence of a gender wage gap in the Italian labour market. We show that over the first 10 years of labour market experience job mobility accounts for up to 30% of total log wage growth for men and only 8.3% for women, and that this difference is mainly due to differences in returns to mobility. The gender mobility gap is robust to the inclusion of individual, job and firm characteristics, to different ways of accounting for individual unobserved heterogeneity, and is mainly found for voluntary job moves. Looking at the characteristics of the jobs and the firms' workers move to, we find that moves to larger firms represent by far the main source of gender differences in returns to mobility. We offer two possible explanations for this finding; one which involves differences in bargaining behaviour and one which relates to the theory of compensating differentials.     

莫让生活危机毁了事业

肯·斯科特正在华盛顿跟客户洽谈业务,妻子卡伦从休斯敦家中打来电话。原来,例行的X光检查表明,她的胸部出现了可疑的肿块。39岁的斯科特是一家公关事务所的负责人,他此时还不知道,从这个电话开始,他即将陷入长达八个月的家庭危机,而这一切都是由于妻子患上了霍金氏症造成的。"我接到电话后,立刻乘当天头班飞机赶回家。"斯科特回忆说,"遇上危机时,亲人自然是最重要的。然而,一旦发现这不是一周或一个月内能解决的问题,我就意识到自己还     

Ideas About Thinking: Excerpts from Edward de Bono's "Letter to Thinkers"

How often do we stop to think about how we think? For years, Edward de Bono has been getting us to think about thinking. It was Dr. de Bono, for example, who coined the term "'lateral thinking" where, he says, richness is what matters, compared to vertical thinking where Tightness matters. In his periodic Letters to Thinkers, he stimulates lateral thinking by the way he gets his readers to turn problems around and look at them from a fresh perspective. This article is made up of excerpts from his Letters to Thinkers, published by Cower Publishing Company Limited, with permission.     

Perception of risk from air pollution and reported behaviors: a cross-sectional survey study in four cities

We investigate how public perceptions of air pollution, risk beliefs and self-reported actions to limit personal exposure to ambient air pollution vary across cities. Our analysis also examines the extent to which a number of individual-level variables are associated to self-protective and information-seeking actions due to bad air quality. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey in four cities with a total sample of 1202 inhabitants. We found a moderate variation in the subjective evaluation of local air pollution between cities, as well as in the levels of annoyance and distress due to air pollution. There was relatively little variation in perceived severity, worry and self-reported actions. No variation was found for self-reported attention to air quality levels and controllability beliefs regarding the risks from air pollution. Preliminary modeling of four self-reported actions suggests that self-reported attention to air quality levels and worry are important predictors of self-protective and information seeking behavior. We conclude that both personal and contextual factors have to be taken into account in order to understand public reactions to outdoor urban air pollution. We discuss the implications in terms of risk and health communication.     

Peanut exposure during pregnancy,breastfeeding and complementary feeding: perceptions of practices in four countries

Food allergy is an increasing problem worldwide. Allergy to peanuts is a particular concern, given that this is rarely outgrown and may be associated with life‐threatening anaphylaxis. However, it is unclear what factors are responsible for a perceived increase in prevalence rates. One matter on which scientists agree, however, is that exposure to peanuts early in life is significant – although whether early exposure protects or sensitizes to allergy is unclear. There is no significant research that currently records differences in early life exposure either within or between populations. This exploratory study makes a first step in this direction using focus groups conducted in four countries with disparate ‘peanut experiences’ to characterize early exposure in these. The ultimate aim is to help in the development of a survey instrument to attain nationally representative samples of consumers and hence to use the results from this to compare with allergy prevalence data collected in other parts of the European Union‐funded ‘EuroPrevall’ project. The results in this study not only reveal considerable similarities across countries (e.g. in terms of lack of knowledge of guidelines; lack of changes in feeding behaviour during/after pregnancy, feelings that diet variety in children is important) but also one or two interesting and potentially important differences, such as increased consumption in Bulgarian (and some Spanish) breastfeeding mothers because of the ability of peanuts to facilitate lactation. Study limitations and future study intentions are also discussed.     

Regional Inequalities in Consumption Patterns: A Multilevel Approach to the Case of Italy

The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the disparities in the Italian regions on the demand side. In more detail, an attempt will be made to find if the consumption behaviour of Italian households is different in the regions. With this in mind, Istat's 2000 Italian Family Budget data set was analysed. The data in question, which were collected through a two‐stage sample over Italy's 20 regions, contains information regarding the expenses of approximately 23,000 households. In this analysis, both households and regions are considered as units: households are nested in the regions so that the basic data structure is hierarchical. In order to take this hierarchical structure into account, a multilevel model was used, making it possible for parameters to vary randomly from region to region. The model in question also made it possible to consider heterogeneity across different groups (regions), such as stochastic variation. First, regional inequalities were tested using a simple model in which households constituted the first level of analysis and were grouped according to their region (the second level). As a second step, and in order to investigate the interaction between geographical context and income distribution, another model was used. This was cross‐classified by income and regions. The most relevant results showed that there is wide fragmentation of consumption behaviour and, at the same time, various differentiated types of behaviour in the regions under analysis. These territorial differentials become clear from income class and items of consumption.     

Work without Wages; the Motivation for Valunteer Firefighters

A bstract . This is a theoretical and empirical exploration into the motivation of volunteer firefighters. After a brief discussion of methodology, the activities in which these volunteers engage are described and a theoretical model of volunteer motivation is presented. The central hypothesis is that individuals engage in voluntary activities to struggle against the pervasive alienating nature of productive activity in capitalist economies in an effort to achieve a greater degree of self actualization. This theoretical model is illustrated using data from a survey administered to 354 volunteer firefighters in Ulster County, New York. Lastly, the relationships between volunteer firefighting, alienation , and self-actualization are empirically explored, focusing upon comparisons between individuals' firefighting and career endeavors.     

Wirtschaftspolitische Herausforderungen der Digitalisierung

Wirtschaftsdienst - Die Digitalisierung bringt weitreichende Veränderungen für Unternehmen, Beschäftigte und Verbraucher mit sich. Sie hat Auswirkungen auf nahezu alle Bereiche des...