Maximum <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-regular induced subgraphs

Independent sets, induced matchings and cliques are examples of regular induced subgraphs in a graph. In this paper, we prove that finding a maximum cardinality k-regular induced subgraph is an NP-hard problem for any fixed value of k. We propose a convex quadratic upper bound on the size of a k-regular induced subgraph and characterize those graphs for which this bound is attained. Finally, we extend the Hoffman bound on the size of a maximum 0-regular subgraph (the independence number) from k=0 to larger values of k.     

Eliciting reconceptualization innovative moments to foster change in Career Construction Counseling

This study tests an add-on procedure to foster change in Career Construction Counseling by eliciting reconceptualization innovative moments. After the career counseling intervention with 42 participants, 21 participants were allocated to the add-on procedure, consisting of two additional sessions focused on eliciting reconceptualization innovative moments In turn, participants in the comparison group attended two extra intervention sessions in which the lifetime task was used. Outcome measures assessing vocational behavior and psychological distress were applied at the onset, at the end of counseling and after the two additional sessions. The findings show that Career Construction Counseling was effective, allowing a significant increase in vocational certainty, vocational identity, career decision-making, and a decrease in psychological distress. After counseling, participants in the add-on intervention fostering reconceptualization innovative moments revealed greater gains in vocational identity and psychological distress than those in the comparison group. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Reduction by half: the impact on bees of 34 years of urbanization

Urban ecosystems are growing rapidly and urbanization is an important cause of the loss of biodiversity. Bees are declining in abundance worldwide, including urban areas, and this decline is alarming because of their global importance as plant pollinators. Here we examine that decline by comparing a bee assemblage sampled in the 1980s and again in 2015, in an urban area of the city of Curitiba. Both studies sampled assemblages with hand-nets every two weeks during one year of study. Bee species richness has declined by 45% (112 species then, 63 today). Two species that have disappeared, Gaesischia fulgurans (Holmberg, 1903) and Thectochlora basiatra (Strand, 1910), have also disappeared elsewhere in the city. Also, relative abundances of species have changed, notably with the increase of social bees. Large bees that nest in cavities have also increased relative to small bees that nest in the ground. These findings are similar with previous reports indicating the sensibility of bees to urbanization. The increase in paved areas, in urban population and in exotic plants are all probably responsible for the sharp decline in bee diversity and abundance.     

Innovative Moments in Career Construction Counseling: Proposal for an Integrative Model

This article advances understanding of career construction counseling (CCC) by viewing it through the lens of the innovative moments model (IMM) of how clients construct change. The IMM conceives clients’ narrative transformations as resulting from counselors prompting and clients reflecting on exceptions to a problematic self‐narrative (i.e., innovative moments; IMs) that emerges in counseling dialogues. On the basis of intensive IMM analysis of CCC case studies, the authors propose an integration of the 2 models that describes the sequence of client change in IMs across the 3 phases of CCC. This proposal provides both conceptual and assessment tools that make it possible to describe and analyze the process of client change through life‐designing dialogues. The authors illustrate the integrated framework with vignettes from case studies and conclude by suggesting research to examine the validity and usefulness of the client change sequence and interventions for using this pattern of change to foster client transformation.     

Identity-based planning of prices and quantities: Cambridge and neoclassical models for Brazil

The paper uses two extensions of standard “sources of growth” analysis to develop price-endogenous medium term planning models for Brazil. The model constructed on the basis of neoKeynesian (or Cambridge, England) assumptions is shown to describe Brazilian growth and distribution changes in the 1960s better than the alternative neoclassical model. In forecasting exercises for the 1970s, both models point to a trade-off between increased inflation and a higher labor share. The neoclassical variant suggests that potential balance of payments difficulties can be offset by opportune devaluation, but the Cambridge results are much less optimistic. Current events suggest that this pessimistic view may be closer to the mark.     

A simplex like approach based on star sets for recognizing convex-QP adverse graphs

A graph \(G\) with convex-\(QP\) stability number (or simply a convex-\(QP\) graph) is a graph for which the stability number is equal to the optimal value of a convex quadratic program, say \(P(G)\). There are polynomial-time procedures to recognize convex-\(QP\) graphs, except when the graph \(G\) is adverse or contains an adverse subgraph (that is, a non complete graph, without isolated vertices, such that the least eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix and the optimal value of \(P(G)\) are both integer and none of them changes when the neighborhood of any vertex of \(G\) is deleted). In this paper, from a characterization of convex-\(QP\) graphs based on star sets associated to the least eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix, a simplex-like algorithm for the recognition of convex-\(QP\) adverse graphs is introduced.     

Estimation of damage to human health due to forest burning in the Amazon

Forest burning stands as a highly used practice in the Brazilian Amazon Forest. Burning trees is the cheapest way to expand agricultural frontiers in the Amazon region. Nevertheless, the smoke generated in this process can produce undesirable negative effects, in particular health-induced problems by the polluted air. This study aims to investigate whether these effects on the health of the region’s population are statistically significant, using as variables mortality and morbidity rates associated with respiratory diseases. The estimated morbidity model was used to estimate the health damage to those people who became ill only by the fire.

Multicriteria decision making applied to waste recycling in Brazil

Waste management, like other environmental issues, tends to be a suitable topic for problem solving using multicriteria decision-making techniques when uncertainty is involved. This paper presents two cases where the decision makers had different preferences. In the first case, social agents required an evaluation of different disposal alternatives for plastic waste. In the second case, existing construction and demolition waste recycling facilities required a performance evaluation.     

DISENTANGLING THE MINIMUM WAGE PUZZLE: AN ANALYSIS OF WORKER ACCESSIONS AND SEPARATIONS

Changes in the legislation in the mid‐1980s in Portugal provide remarkably good conditions for analysis of the employment effects of mandatory minimum wages, as the minimum wage increased sharply for a very specific group of workers. Relying on a matched employer‐employee panel data set, we model gross worker flows—accessions and separations—in continuing firms, as well as in new firms and those going out of business, using a count regression model applied to proportions. Employment trends for teenagers, the affected group, are contrasted to those of older workers before and after the raise in the youth minimum wage. The major effect on teenagers of a rising minimum wage has been the reduction of separations from the employer, which, during the period under analysis, has compensated for the reduction of accessions to new and continuing firms. In this sense, our results can reconcile some of the previous evidence in the empirical literature when analyzing the aggregate impact of the minimum wage on youth employment without decomposing it by type of worker flow. (JEL: D21, J23, J38)     

Individualized Career Counseling Outcome Assessment: A Case Study Using the Personal Questionnaire

Career counseling has evolved to include practices that attribute a central importance to context variables and meaning‐making processes. Accordingly, there is a need for client assessment tools that consider the subjectivity and cultural specificity of clients and the interface between their work and life concerns. The idiographic assessment of outcomes, which uses individualized measures that involve clients in the definition of person‐specific items, is a promising approach. This article explores the use of the Personal Questionnaire (PQ) as an individualized outcome measure that complements standardized outcome career measures. The authors identify the factors leading to the emergence of idiographic assessment in career counseling, review existing research relevant to the need for the PQ, and present a case study of career construction counseling that illustrates how the PQ helps counselors to obtain sensitive and contextualized assessments of career counseling outcomes, guides interventions, and facilitates meaning making.