Asylum Migration in OECD Countries: In Search of Lost Well-Being

Social Indicators Research - Alongside the economic determinants and unobserved structural forces that drive migration flows, asylum migration faces additional natural and man-made hazards, which...     

Trends in Inequality of Opportunity for Developing Countries: Does the Economic Indicator Matter?

Social Indicators Research - The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the behaviour of Inequality of Opportunity (IOp henceforth) in developing countries. The analysis is carried out using...     

In search of optimal management of the purchasing–marketing interface for new product development

Abstract

Growing dependence on suppliers for production and innovation, together with increasing consumer demands, has prompted recent discussions of the importance of purchasing–marketing functional integration. However, empirical studies are needed to understand how to manage this interface within a new product development (NPD) context. This study, grounded in information processing theory, proposes a new model to classify integrating mechanisms as either information-sharing forums or optimizers. This model further postulates the greater capacity of optimizer mechanisms for improving NPD commercial and financial performance, as well as speed. The empirical results, obtained from a sample of 141 firms, show that forums only improve NPD speed, whereas optimizer mechanisms evoke better commercial and financial performance. This study therefore highlights the potential of different integrating mechanisms and contributes to the on-going debate about the very concept of functional integration itself.     

Radon as a Tracer of Lung Changes Induced by Smoking

After smoking, exposure to radon and its progeny is the second leading cause of lung cancer. The probability of inducing lung carcinomas by inhaled radon progeny depends on the deposited radiation dose, and is significantly affected by physiological and morphometric changes induced by smoking. Due to irritation of the airways, the inhalation of cigarette smoke leads to the hyperproduction of mucus. Two concurrent processes occur: on one hand, increased production of mucus protects the target cells against radiation damage; on the other hand, in the case of long-term smokers, a chronic lung obstruction develops, causing an increase in the radiation dose to the lungs. Depending on the duration and intensity of smoking, these processes contribute to the final radiation dose with different weights. The primary objective of this study was to investigate to what extent these smoke-induced changes can modify the resulting absorbed dose of inhaled radon progeny relative to healthy nonsmokers. Since the bronchial dose depends on the degree of lung tissue damage, we have used this dose as a tool for detecting the effects of smoking on the lung epithelium. In other words, the biological effect of radon served as a tracer of changes induced by smoking.     

Educational potential of e-social work: social work training in Spain

ABSTRACT

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have enhanced peer communication and contributed to social change and, as such, have become an essential tool in the initial training and professional development of future social work practitioners. In the new millennium, it is particularly important to provide the foundations for delivering appropriate interventions in the fields of social education, social services, healthcare and development cooperation. To face these new challenges, training programmes in the framework of the European Higher Education Area should facilitate the acquisition of skills and competencies through curricula based on ongoing assessment which promote creativity and educational innovation. Through a systematic and comprehensive review of the scientific literature, this article examines the educational potential of e-social work in Spain and the training needs of social workers from an interdisciplinary approach. A critical debate is presented throughout the paper to encourage reflection among professionals. The study highlights the importance of the acquisition of digital skills through the development of educational intervention programmes using the latest technological media and resources with a view to serving citizens in these new spaces of interaction.     

民间文学艺术的法律界定

民间文学艺术,是世界各国人民民俗文化和传统习俗的重要表现形式,是一个国家文化遗产的重要组成部分。界定什么是民间文学艺术并对民间文学艺术进行法律保护,对于我国有着十分重要的意义。本文通过对民间文学艺术与其他文学艺术的比较以及和民间文学艺术作品等几个相似概念的区分,认为民间文学艺术是指由某个特定的群体集体创作,在世代流传过程中不断完善和发展,体现该群体的文化和社会特征的,能够以某种形式体现其艺术价值的文学、艺术、技术等领域的传统思想和信息。     

Risk Communication in The Netherlands: The Monitored Introduction of the EC "Post-Seveso" Directive

Implementation of article 8.1 of the EC-"Seveso" Directive (82/501/EC) is now under way in many countries in Europe. In The Netherlands, the implementation of the Directive started with a carefully monitored introduction of active information provision at two sites (Dordrecht and Elst). This introduction was supported by a multidisciplinary research group. This group helped to develop the risk communication program and also played a role in the evaluation of the program. This paper describes these processes and their evaluation. We will focus on the design of the risk communication programs and the effects of the programs on knowledge and attitudes of the local target groups. This effort and its results clearly started an institutional learning process involving governmental bodies at several organizational levels (local, regional, and national), and industrial organizations (individual firms and organizations of industries). Monitoring the design, the implementation, and the effects of active information provision proves an effective means to gain experience with the implementation of the Seveso Directive and could help to facilitate further implementation.     

Bootstrap techniques for proportional hazards models with censored observations

We propose a bootstrap technique for generating pseudo-samples from survival data containing censored observations. This simulation selects a survival time with replacement from the data and then assigns a covariate according to the model of proportional hazards. We also develop a constrained bootstrap technique in which every pseudo-sample has the same distribution of covariate values as does the original, observed data. We use these simulation techniques to estimate the bias and variance of regression coefficients and to approximate the significance levels of goodness-of-fit statistics for testing the assumption of the proportional hazards model.     

A spatial model of political competition and proportional representation

 A spatial model of party competition is studied in which: (i) Parties are supposed to have ideology. By this we mean that their goal is to maximize the welfare of their constituencies. (ii) The policy implemented after the election does not need to coincide with the one proposed by the winner. The policy implemented should be a compromise that considers the proposals made by the different parties. In the case of proportional representation this compromise is modeled as a convex combination of the proposed policies with weights proportional to the number of votes obtained by each party. We provide some existence theorems and compare the equilibrium in our model with the equilibrium that exists under some probabilistic models. It is also shown that proportional representation will create incentives for the parties to announce radical platforms. Received: 17 May 1994/Accepted: 5 March 1996