Proposal for an integrative methodology to development the ergonomic program

This paper collects the experience for both, academic and professional practice, and deal with the stages and level of involvement from different elements in the organization. The work is focused in some kind of concentric cycles, the very outside circle is formed by those that interact with ergonomic process in a year period, and the inner cycles are those that acts in a daily or weekly intervention. The success of the program still depending on the good will of the managers, but any action directed on benefit of the people at work, enable the moral as well as indicators for health and safety.     

How do industry and country impact firm performance? A national and supranational analysis

We contribute to the literature of the country, industry and firm effects on performance by developing an autoregressive cross-classified mixed-effect linear model that examines heterogeneity in the profitability of corporations in emerging and developed economies, as well as corporations located in different supranational regions. To this purpose, we simultaneously decompose abnormal returns into permanent and transitory components at the firm, industry, country and industry–country levels. We find that firms in emerging countries have significantly higher rates of performance persistence and different sources of persistence compared to firms located in developed countries. These differences are also evident between different supranational regions and countries at different levels of institutional development.

     

Racial/Ethnic Minority Vocational Research Trends: An 11‐Year Update

This study extends Flores et al.'s ( 2006 ) 36‐year analysis of racial/ethnic minority (REM) career research to identify recent trends in choice of topics and leading individual and institutional contributors. The authors identified 166 articles on REM career research published from 2005 to 2015 in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, The Career Development Quarterly, the Journal of Career Assessment, and the Journal of Career Development. Of these studies, 92% were empirical, with more than three quarters of these using quantitative rather than qualitative methodology. Most frequently, the empirical studies (n = 153) were based on samples of high school (30.7%) or undergraduate (34.6%) students. The authors discuss the implications of their findings and suggest ways to expand REM career research in the future.     

Book review

How to Conduct Self‐administered and Mail Surveys, L. B. Bourque and E. P. Fielder, London, Sage Publications, 1995, 223 pp, £17.50     

Sundown Town to “Little Mexico”: Old‐timers and Newcomers in an American Small Town*

Abstract For more than a century, communities across the United States legally employed strategies to create and maintain racial divides. One particularly widespread and effective practice was that of “sundown towns,” which signaled to African Americans and others that they were not welcome within the city limits after dark. Though nearly 1,000 small towns, larger communities, and suburbs across the country may have engaged in these practices, until recently there has been little scholarship on the topic. Drawing from qualitative and quantitative sources, this article presents a case study of a midwestern rural community with a sundown history. Since 1990 large numbers of Mexican migrants have arrived there to work at the local meat‐processing plant, earning the town the nickname “Little Mexico.” The study identifies a substantial decline in Hispanic‐white residential segregation in the community between 1990 and 2000. We consider possible explanations for the increased spatial integration of Latino and white residents, including local housing characteristics and the weak enforcement of preexisting housing policies. We also describe the racialized history of this former sundown town and whether, paradoxically, its history of excluding nonwhites may have played a role in the spatial configurations of Latinos and non‐Hispanic whites in 2000. Scholars investigating the contemporary processes of Latino population growth in “new” destinations, both in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, may want to explore the importance of sociohistorical considerations, particularly localities' racialized historical contexts before the arrival of Mexican and other Latino immigrants.     

An adaptive bayebsian solution to the control peoble1 for linear control systems

In this paper, a Bayesian procedure to solve the control problem in Linear Control Systems , when the precision Matrices of the obstsrvaiional and systems errors are unknown, is proposed. Prior information on those matrices is required, A numerical example illustrates the procedure applied to models Which contain bivariate observations and bivariate state vectors.     

Developing an Index to Measure Sub-municipal Level Urban Sprawl

The present study aims to develop an index composed of different spatial variables to measure the urban sprawl levels of a municipality located in Southern Spain. According to the findings, urban sprawl can be measured not only on the metropolitan level but also on a more detailed and precise level, such as sub-municipal. A group of experts chosen for their suitability in measuring urban sprawl select six spatial variables (population density, net residential density, coverage ratio, land use types, percentage of residential land use, and average year of construction). These variables are aggregated using Choquet integral, a technique that combines interactions between those variables providing greater coherence to the complexity that is inherent in the creation of composite sprawl indexes. This methodology has been demonstrated to be valid and appropriate in evaluating urban expansion at sub-municipal level, but can also be applied to other scales once it is clearly a phenomenon in which interaction between criteria exists. The resulting composite index allows the assignment of different levels of sprawl to the urban areas consistent with their morphology and landscape.     

Informal Referrals,Employment, and Wages: Seeking Causal Relationships

Employers and job seekers rely extensively on informal referrals to fill vacancies or to find a job. The widespread use of job contacts has been largely associated with labor outcomes, such as finding a job or even affecting wages. This paper explores whether the use of informal referrals on the job search process affects labor market outcomes of Colombian urban workers. Results indicate that informal referrals are slightly more successful than other job search strategies in term of job seeker's placement. However, referred workers earn in average less than their non‐referred counterparts. Yet, this is only true in formal‐sector positions.