Demography,Education, and Democracy: Global Trends and the Case of Iran

Reconstructions and projections of populations by age, sex, and educational attainment for 120 countries since 1970 are used to assess the global relationship between improvements in human capital and democracy. Democracy is measured by the Freedom House indicator of political rights. Similar to an earlier study on the effects of improving educational attainment on economic growth, the greater age detail of this new dataset resolves earlier ambiguities about the effect of improving education as assessed using a global set of national time series. The results show consistently strong effects of improving overall levels of educational attainment, of a narrowing gender gap in education, and of fertility declines and the subsequent changes in age structure on improvements in the democracy indicator. This global relationship is then applied to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over the past two decades Iran has experienced the world's most rapid fertility decline associated with massive increases in female education. The results show that based on the experience of 120 countries since 1970, Iran has a high chance of significant movement toward more democracy over the following two decades.     

Supported employment and job outcomes. Typicalness and other related variables

The purpose of this study is to improve supported employment programs analyzing the relationships between different variables involved in its development on job outcomes. One important variable is typicalness (understood as the degree to which the job of the person with a disability is similar in its different characteristics to that of co-workers without a disability). It also compares sheltered employment and supported employment in employment outcomes. The results showed more length of service in the job and salary for supported employment workers. As regards the developmental variables, time of external support, type of support, and adaptations are critical to get better outcomes. Finally, the need to finely balance the typicalness of the job and the characteristics of the worker involved is stressed.     

The dynamics of returns to education in Uganda: National and subnational trends

We assess empirically the changes in returns to education at the subnational level in Uganda using the Uganda National Household Surveys for 2002–3 and 2005–6. Our results indicate that average returns to schooling tended to converge across regions in the last decade. The overall trend in convergence of returns to schooling took place at all levels of educational attainment and this behaviour in returns to education is mostly driven by the dynamics of returns to schooling in urban areas. We analyse subnational convergence in returns to education and unveil deviant dynamics in Northern Uganda. We discuss the potential challenges to inclusive economic growth in Uganda which are implied by our results.     

Moving communities: A process of negotiation with a Gypsy minority for empowerment

This paper describes the process by which the relationship between university workers and members of a Gypsy community evolved. Transformation in the relationships between the two, in terms of knowledge, trust, and affect, in turn transformed the nature of the work undertaken. What started as research on the community changed into research within and of the community. The process is discussed in terms of empowerment, community psychological practice and participatory action research. Este artículo describe el proceso de cambio de la relación establecida entre miembros de una universidad y miembros de una comunidad gitana. Las transformaciones que dicha relación experimentó, en términos de conocimiento, confianza y afecto, acabaron alterando la naturaleza del propio proyecto. Lo que empezó siendo una investigación sobre una comunidad, fue transformándose en una investigación en la comunidad, con la colaboración de la comunidad. El artículo discute este proceso se discute en términos de 'empowerment', psicología comunitaria, e investigación-acción.     

On the role of Prognostics and Health Management in advanced maintenance systems

The advanced use of the Information and Communication Technologies is evolving the way that systems are managed and maintained. A great number of techniques and methods have emerged in the light of these advances allowing to have an accurate and knowledge about the systems’ condition evolution and remaining useful life. The advances are recognised as outcomes of an innovative discipline, nowadays discussed under the term of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM). In order to analyse how maintenance will change using PHM, a conceptual model is proposed built upon three views. The model highlights: (i) how PHM may impact the definition of maintenance policies; (ii) how PHM fits within the condition-based maintenance; and (iii) how PHM can be integrated into reliability-centred maintenance programmes. The conceptual model is the research finding of this review note and helps to discuss the role of PHM in advanced maintenance systems.     

Missingness Amount and Mechanisms in Family Economic Stress Research: Mapping (Non)answers to Economic-Related Variables of Fathers,Mothers, and Emerging Adult Children

The percentage of missing data among economic-related items is likely to be particularly high. This study aimed at examining the amount, mechanisms, and variables associated with missingness of different family members participating in a family economic stress study. Portuguese emerging adults (N?=?418) and their parents (N?=?748) were required to answer objective and subjective economic items and complete measures assessing individual and family psychological functioning. Results showed that, for all participants, non-response was more likely to occur among objective economic items than among subjective ones. Children presented higher percentages of item/construct-level missingness than parents, which could reflect a reduced financial awareness on the part of these family members. Although the identification of mechanisms explaining missing data proved to be complex, family members’ missingness was associated with sociodemographic and psychological indicators, suggesting that non-answers do not occur purely by chance. Implications of these findings for further family economic stress research are discussed.

     

Is the Demographic Dividend an Education Dividend?

The effect of changes in age structure on economic growth has been widely studied in the demography and population economics literature. The beneficial effect of changes in age structure after a decrease in fertility has become known as the “demographic dividend.” In this article, we reassess the empirical evidence on the associations among economic growth, changes in age structure, labor force participation, and educational attainment. Using a global panel of countries, we find that after the effect of human capital dynamics is controlled for, no evidence exists that changes in age structure affect labor productivity. Our results imply that improvements in educational attainment are the key to explaining productivity and income growth and that a substantial portion of the demographic dividend is an education dividend.     

Resolution of reliability problems based on failure mode analysis: an integrated proposal applied to a mining case study

Abstract

Reliability determines, in large part, the operational productivity. Nevertheless, a frequent problem is the absence of effective mechanisms to support maintenance management. In particular, there is a need for methodologies focused on improving the detection and analysis of risks that affect reliability. This article presents a methodological proposal for the resolution of these problems, using a high-impact failure mode analysis. The methodology is based on four phases: identification of failure modes, ranking and criticality analysis of them, identification of the root cause(s) and search for highly effective solutions. Among the variety of tools that can be used, it is proposed the use of three specific tools: Criticality Analysis, which allows discrimination and ranking of phenomena and assets; Root Cause Analysis, which focuses on the identification of the real causes of the problems; and a tool for generation of effective and efficient solutions (TRIZ), which it is not usually applied to reliability problems. The proposal is applied in a mining filtration plant, identifying and classifying current problems and generating solutions.