An Inter-Temporal Comparison About the Effect of Institutional Changes on the Policy-Making Process in Chile’s Health Sector

Public Organization Review - Do institutional changes lead to changes in the policy formulation process (PFP)? The paper analyses the health sector PFP of the old Chilean democracy (in place until...     

The impact of negotiated exchange on trust and trustworthiness

Negotiated exchanges and trust problems can be regarded as two different forms of exchange, the former representing exchanges with negotiation and binding contracts, the latter representing asymmetric transactions in which one actor has the opportunity to deceive the other. Both forms of exchange have been extensively studied, but the two respective research traditions exhibit very little overlap. In this paper, we investigate the effects of negotiated exchanges in different network structures on the development of mutual trust. We derive hypotheses from various theories and test them by means of an experiment in which subjects first undertake a series of negotiated exchanges under different power conditions, and then face a trust problem with one of the actors that have been involved in the previous exchanges. The trust problem is operationalized by means of the Investment Game which allows us to look separately at trust and trustworthiness. Our results demonstrate that negotiated exchanges increase mutual trust, but not trustworthiness.     

A parallel multi-population genetic algorithm for a constrained two-dimensional orthogonal packing problem

This paper addresses a constrained two-dimensional (2D), non-guillotine restricted, packing problem, where a fixed set of small rectangles has to be placed into a larger stock rectangle so as to maximize the value of the rectangles packed. The algorithm we propose hybridizes a novel placement procedure with a genetic algorithm based on random keys. We propose also a new fitness function to drive the optimization. The approach is tested on a set of instances taken from the literature and compared with other approaches. The experimental results validate the quality of the solutions and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Responses of the ichthyofauna to urbanization in two urban areas in Southeast Brazil

In this study, we evaluated the trophic structure and composition of the ichthyofauna in streams from non-urbanized and urbanized areas in two municipalities with approximately 30,000 inhabitants. We sampled fish fauna in nine pool-run stretches, four located in urban and five in non-urban areas. We adapted a physical habitat index (PHI) that summarized the physical attributes of the habitat, and a fish-based biotic integrity index (IBI) for the trophic structure of fish assemblage. Higher median scores of habitat parameters characterized non-urban stretches owing to better riparian vegetation and shading, bank stability and larger substrates. Diversity, richness and evenness indexes, as well as the abundance and biomass comparison (ABC), did not differ between urban and non-urban areas. The PHI was significantly correlated with the IBI and a non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) analysis showed differences in the composition of the ichthyofauna. These results illustrated a common process in fish assemblages subjected to environmental impact, in which the generalist species replaced more specialist species, altering the species composition but maintaining a similar community structure. In general, the species responses were dependent on their trophic plasticity and foraging habitats. We showed that in a gradient of habitat alteration, species composition and thophic structure are better indicators of degradation than simple diversity indexes. We also discuss the implications of the urbanization in small towns toward changes in the species composition of freshwater fish, and the utilization of biotic and abiotic characteristics to document these changes.     

The Burden of Labour Costs in Mexico

Abstract. We analysed labour costs in Mexico and evaluated their impact in terms of firm performance. Using a new survey, we studied how firms chose to conduct a firing procedure (i.e. mandatory payment, negotiation, or legal dispute) and the actual costs derived from that decision. We found that firms that negotiate have, on average, lower costs. This may mean that workers subvaluate the legal benefits. Moreover, legal disputes may increase firing costs by 50 per cent. We contributed to the analysis of the impact of such costs on employment and found that, when firms negotiate or pay higher costs, this decreases the level of employment. We also analysed the impact of Social Benefits on employment using an industrial survey. We found that a 10 per cent increment in these benefits may have a negative long‐term impact of 9 per cent on the level of employment.