11 research outputs found
A Case Study: How Do We Compensate Minoritized Social Justice Authors and Still Use an Open License?
No full textAs the session begins you\u27ll hear from the first of three speakers addressing the concerns about OER and those who speak and educate on topics related to social justice topics, in this case anti-racism. We will discuss how the book, “FROM RACIST TO NON-RACIST TO ANTI-RACIST: BECOMING PART OF THE SOLUTION by Dr. Keith L Anderson came into being. All too often the author is not compensated well or expected to do the work and no charge. We are looking for solutions for this issue. With some assistance from technology and open licensing concepts we will talk about this case study where a book on anti-racism was published with an open license, through an often used tool but at the same time was made available to be at a pay service which can provide compensation for the author. We will discuss technical aspects of editing the book, once it is written, as well as using print on demand services and local printing services. We will discuss various challenges and opportunities that came along the way. Look at the idea that the OER portion of this author\u27s work is a primer or catalyst for additional work, at which point the author can be compensated for directly. The idea here is to get the information out to as wide a possible audience as available and at the same time provide resources for the learners that enable them to take in the author\u27s work the way that is best for them. At the same time giving the author a chance to lead various workshops, and lectures, and presentations in hopes of creating further work in this area, providing insight to those who may need additional opportunities for understanding and clarity of such topics.
Learning Outcomes:In this case study, learners will come away with an understanding of: How to create OER in several formats, including print on demand and digital. Also, have the work be openly licensed and create an avenue of compensation for the author. Create an avenue for the author to address future work by offering work via OER as catalyst for more opportunities and future work
Costs and benefits of debt and debt service reduction
No full textThe author evaluates the costs and benefits of debt and debt service reduction (DDSR) from the point of view of five countries that have concluded Brady deals: Costa Rica, Mexico, the Philippines, Uruguay, and Venezuela. He concludes that, contrary to widely held views, commercial banks have probably benefited from the operations. Commercial bank participation in DDSR is voluntary, so direct financial savings to the country are probably negative at present values. The benefit from DDSR is not that debt is bought at"bargain prices"at the expense of commercial banks. It appears difficult to justify a DDSR operation on purely financial grounds. A more realistic way to look at a DDSR operation is to view it as a"project"that involves a certain financial cost. The return on such a project is how the DDSR operation improves the macroeconomy, or contributes to development. The main purpose of DDSR is to establish a more efficient arrangement between debtor countries and commercial banks, leading to improved conditions for development. A DDSR operation that does not help development is costly and should not be undertaken. The impact of DDSR on development is usually measured by the increase in the growth rate of GDP, but it is too soon to measure that for these five countries. A suitable alternative is to look at the change in investment patterns. A strong policy framework is needed if debt and debt service reduction are to significantly improve development. In Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Venezuela, improved and sustained strong adjustment policies have generated the greatest development benefits. Gains have been less in smaller countries where policies were not as supportive. The author concludes that for a country to benefit from DDSR, it needs significant indirect benefits (such as increased domestic and foreign savings). Direct benefits are likely to be negative because of the commercial banks'financial gains and because DDSR operations are frontloaded. DDSR operations cannot be justified solely by direct benefits and savings in cash flow.Strategic Debt Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation
Expanding links between work values and occupations: Development of the Occupational Values Inventory (OVI)
No full textCash social transfers, direct taxes, and income distribution in late socialism
No full textThe author analyzes the impact of direct taxes and cash social transfers on income distribution in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia in the years before the collapse of communism. He contrasts the results for socialist and market economies. Cash social transfers accounted for about a fifth of gross income, a proportion comparable with that in developed welfare economies. Generally, cash transfers were unrelated to income in socialist countries, in marked contrast with market economies, where such transfers go mainly to low income households. Direct taxes played almost no role in income redistribution. They were small - 1 to 2 percent of gross income, except in Hungary - and proportional to income. Most taxes were paid by enterprises, as payroll taxes, and most workers were unaware of the taxation and that public spending could not permanently exceed public revenues from taxation. In socialist countries, social support was built into the system through full employment guarantees, state run pension schemes, and free public education and health care. The only explicit policy toward poverty involved alcoholics, handicapped people, and other special categories. This system is being replaced by a market system in which the labor market is key and those who cannot earn enough must be supported by the state. To counteract increasing income disparities, social transfers must be focussed more on the poor. Eastern European states are ill prepared for this role. They have no experience in identifying the needy and targeting support to them. The question is, toward which world of welfare capitalism are the formerly socialist countries likely to evolve? The author contends that the Central European countries will probably evolve toward the corporatist model of continental Europe. Capitalist countries in Europe tend to have large social transfers that are often related to previous earnings, so they have relatively limited roles in income distribution. Transfers are closer to social insurance than to social assistance. The evolution of more agricultural Balkan countries and the Slavic republics of the former Soviet Union is more difficult to predict. Poorer and more agriculture based countries are generally less able to administer welfare schemes, gauge individual incomes, deliver social support - and their finances may be even more strained than those of their Central European counterparts.Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Safety Nets and Transfers
Finance and its reform : beyond laissez-faire
No full textThat the financial sector should be liberalized was the orthodox view in the mid-1970s, during a pendulum swing toward reliance on the free market. In the early 1980s, the pendulum swung back to the left, based partly on evidence - especially from Latin America - that overly rapid reform had real costs, and partly on an increased appreciation of financial market failure. Blind adherence to free market principles was no longer appropriate. Now a counter-counterrevolution is in sight, with some swing back toward the view that the market makes a mess of it, but the government makes it even worse. The authors agree that market-oriented financial systems appear to do a better job than systems with extensive government involvement, but contend that the assumption that perfect competition will solve all problems in finance - especially in banking - can be dangerous. Information problems, implicit or explicit government guarantees associated with the payments system make banks unique. Governments implicitly recognize banking's uniqueness - few allow just anyone to enter banking - but public pronouncements and observers'recommendations often favor a move to more competition. Perfect competition, however, is optimal under the assumption, among others, of no government guarantee. In fact, most governments differ only in how explicit they are about their deposit insurance schemes. The financial reforms most likely to succeed are those that give banks an incentive to engage in safe and sound banking. When excessive competition is allowed, the charter value of banking diminishes to the point that it is no longer profitable for bankers to behave prudently. A consideration of finance's role, and a look at how reforming economies have fared, suggest also that gradual reform is often to be preferred in this domain. Deregulation of credit markets and interest rates can be counterproductive in unstable macroeconomic conditions and when banks are unsophisticated or have weak balance sheets. And changes in the charter value may evolve only slowly after reform. Faster progress and greater efforts should be made, however, in bank supervision and regulation and in institutional development, including accounting, auditing, legal and judicial reform, and training (of bankers and other finance professionals). In sum, many economies would benefit from less government intervention in financial markets, but the prescription should not be abrupt or total government withdrawal from the financial sector. Rather than intervening heavily in credit allocation decisions, governments should focus on doing what only they can do: providing an enabling environment for the private financial and nonfinancial sectors, and ensuring that financial operations are safe and sound.Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring
Tropical timber trade policies : what impact will eco-labeling have?
No full textAbout 20 percent of the total production of tropical timber is traded internationally. But for Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and some countries in West-Central Africa, tropical timber trade accounts for more than 50 percent of production. Although the tropical timber trade has often been blamed for deforestation, the authors find that it contributes much less to deforestation than do poor policies for the production of tropical timber. Lack of tenure rights, short and uncertain logging concessions, low stumpage values, and inadequate monitoring of logging activities are among the major policy failures that help deplete the tropical forests. Trade policies, often identified as an instrument for enforcing environmental objectives internationally, are inefficient instruments for correcting domestic distortions, and in the case of tropical timber trade, may affect the environment perversely. Export and import restrictions ultimately depress the value of an already underpriced resource - the forest. Restrictions on log exports, for example, encourage wasteful processing of logs. Unless sound forest management policies are enforced domestically, the net effect could even be an increase in the rate of deforestation. Import restrictions may have a marginal impact, since trade accounts for less than 20 percent of production and most of the tropical timber is imported in Asia, where such restrictions currently do not exist. Even if import restrictions had a significant impact, it would be in a reduction in value of tropical logs that would make alternative uses of the forest lands more profitable - so the rate of deforestation might not be reduced. Eco-labeling's main strength is its capacity to discriminate (through market signals) in favor of timber produced under sound environmental practices. By contrast, bans and boycotts have an indiscriminate, perverse impact. But if eco-labeling is imposed unilaterally by a subset of countries, its effectiveness will be doubtful. It will lead to trade diversion and potentially perverse environmental results, not to mention an increase in GATT trade disputes. Even if eco-labeling is adopted by all importing countries, there could still be trade diversion in tropical timber products because some consumers may not prefer certified timber, given its higher price. Eco-labeling programs should be designed so that producers see them not as a nontariff barrier but as an instrument for capturing the rents associated with prevailing environmental concerns in the developed world. Consumer education is important to the success of such programs, and eco-labeling programs should be designed accordingly.Environmental Economics&Policies,Forestry,Silviculture,Forests and Forestry,Economic Theory&Research
Job search by employed workers : the effects of restrictions
No full textWithin the framework of a general equilibrium search model, the authors study the effect of institutional restrictions on workers'job mobility. The model generates endogenuous job searches on the job and off the job with two forms of labor contracts emerging and coexisting in equilibrium. One form of contract involves the workers'long-term commitment to the firm ("reversed tenure"): some firms offer high wages in return for their workers'commitment not to search for better jobs. The other is a short-term contract requiring no such commitment: some firms that cannot afford to pay wages that guarantee lifetime attachment pay lower wages, have lower turn-over costs, but impose no restrictions on searches for better jobs. The authors study the effects on employment of exogenous restrictions on mobility - in the form of a transfer from the quitting worker, made either to the employer or to a third party. These transfers, the separation bonds, are typically the benefits lost by the quitting worker, such as vested pension. Restrictions of this type, by crowding out the firms that allow on-the-job searches for employment directly increase unemployment. When restrictions on workers'mobility take the form of a zero-sum transfer, there is no real effect so long as the transfer is below some bound - the worker loses nothing. When the separation bond is prohibitively large, or when it is forfeited to a third party, employment among all types of workers falls.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Markets
Unemployment and labor market dynamics in Russia
No full textThe past 15 months have seen the beginning of structural change in Russia but a failure of the economy to stabilize. The balance sheet, conclude the authors suggests that a return to centralized control remain almost impossible, but the dencentralization that has occurred contain many undesirable features. In framing their analysis, the authors draw on aggregate data and firm-level data from the first-round results of a 1992 survey covering 41 firms in the Moscow region. The survey results suggest that the greater autonomy of firms has facilitated the exploitation of market power while failing to dampen the demand for easy credit from the budget or banking system. For the most part, demand has been satisfied, enabling firms to meet current wage claims and, to a lesser degree, sustain output levels. Buoyant nominal profits can be traced either to pricing behavior derived from market power or to transfers or subsidies channeled through the fiscal monetary system. This in turn has artificially sustained the revenue side of the government accounts. Official employment was no more than 1 percent of the labor force by the end of 1992, but evidence on the importance of marginal unemployment indicates that the underlying pass-through into open unemployment will be great. By the third quarter of 1992, this"augmented"unemployment rate approached 4 percent of the labor force. Even so, the authors observe non-trivial outflows from unemployment to jobs and in some regions to jobs in the private or collective sector. In Russia, outflows to state sector jobs dominate. Survey evidence shows considerable turnover in the state sector and resilient hiring. Much of the churning in labor markets seems to be through voluntary separations and job transitions. Net changes to employment have been limited, and have involved mostly ancillary or clerical staff. The authors discern a core or membership rule dominating Russian firms'decisions which it would be dangerous to assume will be maintained. They interpret it as a holding strategy in a complex game the firms have been playing with government. Lack of a credible reform program has weakened any impulse toward large-scale restructuring of firms. Wages have been more volatile and have regional dispersion, but the authors predict no large consistent shift in relative wages. Rather the wage path has probably been governed by current streams and additional transfers, and then set consistent with the stable employment rule. The path of wages over 1992 is clearly associated with changes in Russia's monetary and fiscal stance and allied institutional features.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets
Estructura espacial de la abundancia de Copépodos pontellidos (Crustácea: Copépoda: Pontellidae) en respuesta a la variabilidad hidrográfica durante marzo y septiembre del año 2019 en la cuenca pacífica colombiana
No full textLos copépodos pueden llegar a representar hasta el 90 % de la abundancia del zooplancton y dentro de estos la familia Pontellidae uno de los numéricamente dominantes en la superficie del océano. Esta familia de hábitos neustonicos se encuentra desde la zona nerítica hasta la oceánica. A pesar de su relevancia ecológica, esta familia, geográficamente no han sido objeto de estudio en la cuenca Pacífica Colombiana, desconociéndose su distribución y la riqueza de especies en toda la cuenca durante la temporada del Jet de Panamá y Chocó. Por tanto, esta investigación evaluó la dinámica comunitaria de estos grupos planctónicos como la su composición, abundancia y distribución a su vez los factores oceanográficos que condicionan su estructura. Además, este estudio exploró mediante modelos construidos con algoritmos de Machine Learning la respuesta de esta familia y la influencia de la variabilidad oceanográfica utilizando datos observados en campo de las especies de Pontellidae y datos de sensores remotos para las variables oceanográficas con una resolución de (0.0083°). Los modelos permitieron conocer los pronósticos de riqueza y distribución para las especies que presentaron múltiples registros de ocurrencia, permitiendo contrastar la riqueza y distribución observada con la pronosticada para las fechas de muestreo, además de identificar las variables que mejor explican estos factores y el modelo con mejor desempeño. La riqueza observada fue de 22 especies para las dos épocas de muestreo, de 21 especies para el Jet de Panamá y de 7 para el Jet del Chocó, sobre la cual se identificaron nuevas áreas con probabilidad de registro de esta riqueza con los pronósticos realizados. Se identificaron las áreas con mayor probabilidad de ocurrencia para ambas temporadas climáticas, siendo la temporada del Jet de Panamá la temporada que mayor aporta a la construcción de los modelos por los registros de ocurrencia durante esa fecha. Los resultados de los modelos indicaron que el algoritmo Random Forest es el que mejor pronosticó la distribución de las especies y se refleja mejor con lo observado. Además, indicó que la temperatura es la variable que principalmente condición la riqueza, abundancia y distribución de las especies.Copepods can represent up to 90% of the zooplankton abundance and within these the Pontellidae family is one of the numerically dominant ones on the ocean surface. This family of neustonic habits is found from the neritic to the oceanic zone. Despite its ecological relevance, this family has not been geographically studied in the Colombian Pacific basin, and its distribution and species richness throughout the basin during the Panama and Chocó Jet season are unknown. Therefore, this research evaluated the community dynamics of these planktonic groups such as composition, abundance and distribution, as well as the oceanographic factors that condition their structure. In addition, this study explored through models built with Machine Learning algorithms the response of this family and the influence of oceanographic variability using data observed in the field of Pontellidae species and data from remote sensors for oceanographic variables with a resolution of (0.0083°). The models allowed us to know the richness and distribution forecasts for the species that presented multiple records of occurrence, allowing us to contrast the observed richness and distribution with that predicted for the sampling dates, in addition to identifying the variables that best explain these factors and the model with better performance. The observed richness was 22 species for the two sampling periods, 21 species for the Panama Jet and 7 for the Chocó Jet, on which new areas with a probability of recording this richness were identified with the forecasts made. The areas with the highest probability of occurrence were identified for both climatic seasons, with the Panama Jet season being the season that contributes the most to the construction of the models due to the occurrence records during that date. The results of the models indicated that the Random Forest algorithm is the one that best predicted the distribution of the species and is best reflected by what was observed. Furthermore, he indicated that temperature is the variable that mainly conditions the richness, abundance and distribution of species.Ecología MarinaCOL0169578MaestríaMagíster en Ciencias del Ma
Genetic predisposition to in situ and invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast.
No full textInvasive lobular breast cancer (ILC) accounts for 10-15% of all invasive breast carcinomas. It is generally ER positive (ER+) and often associated with lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS). Genome-wide association studies have identified more than 70 common polymorphisms that predispose to breast cancer, but these studies included predominantly ductal (IDC) carcinomas. To identify novel common polymorphisms that predispose to ILC and LCIS, we pooled data from 6,023 cases (5,622 ILC, 401 pure LCIS) and 34,271 controls from 36 studies genotyped using the iCOGS chip. Six novel SNPs most strongly associated with ILC/LCIS in the pooled analysis were genotyped in a further 516 lobular cases (482 ILC, 36 LCIS) and 1,467 controls. These analyses identified a lobular-specific SNP at 7q34 (rs11977670, OR (95%CI) for ILC = 1.13 (1.09-1.18), P = 6.0 × 10(-10); P-het for ILC vs IDC ER+ tumors = 1.8 × 10(-4)). Of the 75 known breast cancer polymorphisms that were genotyped, 56 were associated with ILC and 15 with LCIS at P<0.05. Two SNPs showed significantly stronger associations for ILC than LCIS (rs2981579/10q26/FGFR2, P-het = 0.04 and rs889312/5q11/MAP3K1, P-het = 0.03); and two showed stronger associations for LCIS than ILC (rs6678914/1q32/LGR6, P-het = 0.001 and rs1752911/6q14, P-het = 0.04). In addition, seven of the 75 known loci showed significant differences between ER+ tumors with IDC and ILC histology, three of these showing stronger associations for ILC (rs11249433/1p11, rs2981579/10q26/FGFR2 and rs10995190/10q21/ZNF365) and four associated only with IDC (5p12/rs10941679; rs2588809/14q24/RAD51L1, rs6472903/8q21 and rs1550623/2q31/CDCA7). In conclusion, we have identified one novel lobular breast cancer specific predisposition polymorphism at 7q34, and shown for the first time that common breast cancer polymorphisms predispose to LCIS. We have shown that many of the ER+ breast cancer predisposition loci also predispose to ILC, although there is some heterogeneity between ER+ lobular and ER+ IDC tumors. These data provide evidence for overlapping, but distinct etiological pathways within ER+ breast cancer between morphological subtypes
