Uneven Impact Research Articles

Seroprevalence, Spatial Distribution, and Social Determinants of SARS-CoV-2 in Three Urban Centers of Chile

Background: Seroprevalence studies provide an accurate measure of SARS-CoV-2 spread and the presence of asymptomatic cases. They also provide information on the uneven impact of the pandemic, pointing out vulnerable groups to prioritize who is particularly relevant in unequal societies. Here, we estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in three urban centers of Chile and model its spatial risk distribution. Methods :We conducted a population-based serosurvey in Santiago, Talca, and Coquimbo–La Serena (2,493 individuals) and explored the association between positive results and socio-economic and health-related variables by logistic regression for complex surveys. Using an Empirical Bayesian Kriging model, we evaluated the infection risk distribution using individual, household, and census information and compared these results with official records. Findings: Seroprevalence was 10·4% (95%CI 7·8-13·7%), ranging from 2% (Talca) to 11% (Santiago), almost three times the number officially reported. Approximately 36% of these were asymptomatic, reaching 82% below 15 years old. Seroprevalence was associated with the city of residence, previous COVID-19 diagnosis, contact with confirmed cases (especially at household), and foreign nationality. The spatial model accurately interpolated the distribution of disease risk within the cities finding significant differences in the predicted probabilities of SARS-CoV-2 infection by census zone (IQR 2·5%-15·0%), related to population density and education.Interpretation: Our results underscore the transmission heterogeneity of SARS-CoV-2 within and across three urban centers of Chile. Socio-economic factors and the outcomes of this seroprevalence study enable us to identify priority areas for intervention. Our methodological approach and results can help guide the design of interdisciplinary strategies for urban contexts, not only for SARS-CoV-2 but also for other communicable diseases. Funding Information: Chilean National Research Agency, ANID-COVID-19-0589Declaration of Interests: None declared.Ethics Approval Statement: The Ethics Committees of the Universities el Desarrollo and Talca and the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Catolica del Norte (Numbers 2020-54, 34-2020, and 21 2020, respectively) approved the study protocols. Depending on age, the participants provided a signed consent to participate in the study; children participated with their assent and parental consent.

The cyanide revolution: Efficiency gains and exclusion in artisanal- and small-scale gold mining

Since its advent at the end of the nineteenth century, cyanide processing facilitated the intensification and global expansion of industrial gold mining. Today, there are important indications that artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is on the verge of a similar cyanide revolution: while ASGM is typically associated with mercury-based processing, mercury amalgamation is increasingly replaced with, or complemented by, cyanidation. Relying on evidence from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Burkina Faso, we demonstrate how this transition is having a deeply transformative impact on ASGM communities. On the one hand, cyanidation produces clear efficiency gains. Together with rising gold prices, it is fueling a dramatic expansion of ASGM by enabling the profitable extraction of lower-grade gold deposits. On the other hand, it contributes to the emergence of new and often highly unequal labor and revenue-sharing arrangements. More broadly, these findings demonstrate the highly uneven impact of socio-technical transformations. Consequently, the growing number of efforts to intervene in the technological make-up of ASGM, usually in the name of efficiency and sustainability, should be wary of having unintended consequences.

Asymmetric impact of fiscal policy variables on economic growth in Nigeria

ABSTRACT The study used time series data from 1980 to 2018 and the Nonlinear ARDL approach to analyse the asymmetric impacts of fiscal policy on economic growth in Nigeria. The bounds test findings indicated a distinctive nonlinear co-integrating link between fiscal policy variables and economic growth. The empirical findings demonstrated that growth responds asymmetrically to changes in recurrent expenditure in both the long and short run. Economic growth responded symmetrically to changes in petroleum profit tax, customs and excise levies, which was significant in both the long and short run. Variations in domestic and external debt had an uneven impact on growth in the long-run and a balanced relationship in the short-run. Fiscal improvements were advised to broaden the revenue base through an efficient tax administration and collection system, enhance expenditure on vital infrastructure, eliminate unnecessary deficit financing, and invest productively in public debt to stimulate private investment and inclusive growth.

Exploratory analysis of the position of Chinese cities as international tourism hubs: product destination versus business environment internationalization

This paper measures the level of tourism internationalization of 50 major cities in Mainland China by analyzing their connectivity as international tourism hubs. A typology of cities is presented based on a comparison of their ‘product destination internationalization’ and ‘business environment internationalization’ in the tourism sector. Results are interpreted in the context of three dimensions of the internationalization of the Chinese economy: the imbalanced development of the space-economy; the uneven impact of policy plans and mechanisms; and the imprint of spatio-political hierarchies. We discuss how this study can be complemented with research using other spatial imageries, and used as the starting point for further comparative studies on tourism internationalization in other geographical contexts.

Sosyal Ağların İşgücü Piyasası Eşitsizlikleri ve Okuldan İşe Geçişlere Etkisi

Countries invest in education systems in order to increase the quality of their human capital. In this context, it is seen that especially after the expansion of the higher education systems, countries try to increase higher education graduation rates in order to improve the quality of human resources in the labor market. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to facilitate the transitions from school-to-work, and to increase social welfare by meeting the human resources needs of the labor market. The facilitation of school-to-work transitions has a direct impact on youth unemployment. School-to-work transitions are influenced not only by the quality of education from primary to higher education but also by the dynamics of the labor market. Social network analysis can provide important insights into this dynamics, and in doing so reveal that there are indeed many factors that play a key role in determining who gets a job and why, including, first and foremost, social contacts. An analysis of job search channels reveals that partners, friends, and relatives are those social contacts that are most decisive for employment outcomes. Research reveals that employers use social-contact-based reference channels much more frequently than formal channels for recruitment. Thus, employers frequently use such reference channels in recruitment. It has also been shown that the use of social-contact channels reduces employers' costs of finding suitable employees and increases productivity since employees hired through these channels also stay longer in their firms. We here explore the full potential of social network analysis to better our understanding of school-to-work transitions, to reveal in no uncertain terms the importance of social contacts, and to show how these insights can be leveraged to level the labor market for all involved. An important take-home message is that the labor market dynamics is strongly affected by the Matthew effect, such that the inequalities and the gaps between opportunities only grow and widen as the underlying social networks evolve. It is therefore important to mitigate these effects well before school-to-work transitions come into play, namely during the education. In particular, we assert that minimizing the inequalities during education should effectively mitigate the uneven impact of social networks on school-to-work transitions.

The Uneven Impacts of Violence against Women Reform in Guatemala: Intersecting Inequalities and the Patchwork State

In 2008 Guatemala passed legislation criminalizing various forms of violence against women and mandating the creation of courts that would specialize in such violence. This article demonstrates that these reforms’ impacts were unevenly felt, with the most marginalized benefiting the least. It explains this gap by drawing on a historical intersectional analysis, and reveals the importance of including place alongside more commonly studied categories of difference. It also illuminates the sources of the gaps between policies and their impacts. It finds that many Guatemalan women remained marginalized from security and justice, despite attempts to protect them, for two reasons. First, the reforms isolated violence against women from other structural sources of inequality, thus undercutting their impacts for multiply marginalized women. Second, the reforms’ impacts were undermined by historically constituted patterns of state-society relations and the uneven nature of the Guatemalan state.

Who and how many can work from home? Evidence from task descriptions

The Covid-19 crisis has forced great societal changes, including forcing many to work from home (WFH) in an effort to limit the spread of the disease. The ability to work from home has long been considered a perk, but we have few estimates of how many jobs are actually possible to be performed from home. This paper proposes a method to estimate the share of these jobs. For each occupation, we obtain a WFH friendly measure by asking respondents from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to evaluate whether the corresponding tasks can be performed from home based on the descriptions from the International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO-08) standard. The share of WFH friendly jobs in an economy can then be estimated by combining these measures with the labor statistics on occupational employments. Using Norway as an illustrating example, we find that approximately 38% of Norwegian jobs can be performed from home. The Norwegian results also suggest that the pandemic and the government’s attempts to mitigate this crisis may have a quite uneven impact on the working population. Those who are already disadvantaged are often less likely to have jobs that can be performed from home.

Offshoring and working hours adjustments in a within-firm labor market

Although a growing body of literature identifies the within-firm redistribution effects of trade, research on the adjustment processes in within-firm labor markets remains scarce. This study analyzes the within-firm adjustment of working hours and wages by considering workers’ educational background and gender in response to a change in offshoring. Matched worker–firm panel data in the Japanese manufacturing sector covering 1998 to 2014 are used. The analysis leads to the following three observations. First, offshoring does not significantly alter the skill premium and gender gap in terms of scheduled monthly salaries and scheduled hourly wages. Second, offshoring decreases skill premium in annual hourly wages, whereas it increases gender gap in annual salaries. Third, this uneven impact on annual variables arises from the different changes in overtime working hours: college graduates work longer with a lower overtime premium, whereas female workers do not increase overtime work.

State aid, EU maritime transport policies and competitiveness of EU country fleets

Aim and purposesThis study conducts an across-the-board comparative analysis of the impact of the main measures used by the 10 leading maritime nations of the EU on the relative competitiveness of the fleets that they control, covering the period from 1996 to 2011. We propose two models to compare the relative effectiveness of the maritime policy measures implemented: one for the full set of countries and measures and the other specifically for each maritime nation.FindingsThe estimation results make us conclude that generally the measures adopted in national-level maritime policies (tonnage tax, second register and other measures) seem to have been effective in that they have had a positive effect on the competitiveness of controlled fleets, but with uneven impact on the fleets of each country.

Impact of Covid-19 on the Differently Abled- A Study of Urban India Residents

A crisis exposes and intensifies the sufferings of the underprivileged sections of the society. COVID-19 was such an event which unveiled the structural inadequacies for the welfare of the weak and disempowered. One such disempowered group is Persons with Disabilities (PwD). The report by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) points out how the pandemic has had an uneven impact on people with disabilities. One of the major reasons for the invisibility of the pain and suffering of the disabled is due to lack of representation in the state machinery. Within the disabled peoples, the economically lower class is placed at a further disadvantageous position.

НАВЧАННЯ ПИСЬМА В ЕКСТРЕНИХ УМОВАХ: ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ НАВЧАЛЬНОГО ПОТЕНЦІАЛУ ОНЛАЙН-ПЛАТФОРМ

Introduction. This paper reports on the results of the initial stage of the study targeted at carrying out a comprehensive comparative research into the educational capacity of two online tools that were used to teach academic writing to university students in the emergency online learning under the COVID-19 pandemic. Since this kind of online educational activity was meaningfully different from well-planned online experiences in terms of planning, preparation, and development, the authors were required to find the tools and online platform to match a range of criteria, such as: accessibility of the tool/platform; high task generation capacity; feedback generation capacity as well as the capacity to disable academic dishonesty. The objective of this paper is to consider the impact of technological support of online writing instruction on the quality of the students’ cause-effect essays as well as on building writing skills of the learners. Methodology. The research is designed as an experimental online training of the 3rd-year students of the Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (n=42). Authors 1 and 2 acted as teachers in the process of online writing instruction with the involvement of ZenGengo and PaperRater platforms, which, presumably, adds limitations to this research. Results and discussion. The research results prove a positive impact of the indicated online platforms on improving the overall quality of students’ written products. However, the data obtained show an uneven impact of the platforms on both improving the quality of a written product and the development of students’ integrated writing skills. Language, rhetorical, and textual skills of students were more influenced as opposed to the ability to integrate information from reading/listening sources. The overall conclusion drawn from the research exploration is that only targeted choice of online tools can lead to significant improvement in targeted skills. For online learning to be effective, the tools used in it need to be user-friendly and have a strong potential for optimization in terms of time-consumption and labor-intensiveness. Further prospects for research lie in exploring the educational potential of other platforms as well as investigating the impact of using multimedia tools on other aspects of academic writing

Sweden and Coronavirus: Unexceptional Exceptionalism

The aims of this article are, first, to describe the Swedish authorities’ strategy for dealing with the sudden onset of novel coronavirus in early 2020 and, second, to explain why that strategy differed markedly from those in nearly all other European countries. From an early stage, the Swedish government delegated decision making to the Public Health Agency, and its goal was to mitigate the effects of the virus rather than to suppress its spread. Society was never closed down in the same way as elsewhere. Using data from media reports and other publications, we argue that the agency was insulated from pressure to change course, even as the number of deaths associated with covid-19 rose far above those in Sweden’s Nordic neighbours, by four conditions: (1) the structure of national public administration; (2) an outburst of nationalism in parts of the media; (3) the uneven impact of the virus; and (4) a political leadership that was willing to delegate responsibility for policy almost entirely. We conclude by briefly comparing the coronavirus strategy to previous episodes of Swedish policy exceptionalism. This emerging pattern, we suggest, raises normative questions about the functioning of Swedish democracy.

Forest Transformation Urgency for Topsoil Diversity Optimization During Environmental Change

Abstract Combined effect of environmental change and management variability leads to reduced soil diversity in homogenous forest stands. On the other hand, forest soil diversity is maintained with rich tree species composition. In this study, focus has been put on deriving urgency to change forest tree species composition in order to increase soil diversity in biogeographic regions with uneven impact of environmental change. The relation of forest tree species and soil diversities was compared between the periods of dominant sulphur deposition (1985–1994) and the period of regional environmental change (2003–2012) in the Czech Republic (Central Europe; 78 866 km2; 115–1602 m n.m.). Forest tree species and soil diversities were assessed using linear regression, discrimination analysis and geographically weighted regression including residue analysis. The effect of spatial differences of acid deposition on soil properties, though, decreased, still dependencies between the diversity of bedrock, soils and forest tree species increased significantly. Only 12.9 % of forests in the territory of the CR have optimum tree species diversity. The total of 65.9 % of forest require highly or moderately urgent transformation. An increase in spatial dependencies between soil and tree species diversities confirms the importance of site differentiation in forest transformation.

The effect of the Great Recession on the employment growth of young vs. small firms in the Eurozone

This paper examines the uneven impact of the Great Recession on firm-level employment growth across firm size and age classes. Based on firm-level data from ten Eurozone countries, we show that, notwithstanding the negative impact of the crisis, young firms were the most dynamic group of firms and prime contributors to net job creation even during the recession. However, conditional on survival, young firms experienced a sharp drop in their employment growth rates, whereas small firms were mostly unaffected. By using industry-level measures of external financial dependence, we then show how financial frictions were a driver of the growth rates slowdown of young firms.

The Urban/Rural Divide in the Early Modern Period

Abstract The major developments of the early modern period had an uneven impact on urban and rural dwellers, leading to divergences in worldview and mentality between the two demographics. This article reflects upon these differences through a microhistorical study of an episode in Joseph Emin’s Life and Adventures, where Emin, an eighteenth-century “port Armenian” encounters Armenian villagers in the Ottoman town of Jinis. My reading of this episode provides a focus for broader reflections on the growing divergences between the viewpoints of a port Armenian like Emin, who was connected to the developments taking place in the early modern world, and that of rural dwellers like the local villagers and priest of Jinis, who were largely disconnected from the same developments.

Development of Multi-DOF Model of Automotive LED Headlamp Assembly for Force Transmission Prediction Using MATLAB GUI

The use of Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in automobile headlamps began two decades ago. Since then, several design and efficiency improvements have been made. However, the reliability and durability of these LED systems remain uncertain. There are several approaches for reliability analysis, e.g., thermal, electrical, optical, or structural. The first three issues have been studied in the past, but there has been minimal focus on structural and dynamic durability. Uneven road conditions and impact forces acting on the headlamp module can damage components and misalign the aiming mechanism. Moreover, the functionality could be disturbed, thereby decreasing the efficiency of the system. To determine the forces acting inside the module on each component, this study proposes a simulation technique for predicting the magnitude of forces transmitted from the automobile chassis to the headlamp module under even and uneven road conditions. A vibration system with 23 degrees-of-freedom is developed and equations of motion are derived using Newton’s second law of motion. Solving this system of equations with Simulink and MATLAB provided the linear and angular displacements of each element, which were then utilized to calculate the forces transmitted through these elements. Two forcing conditions were compared and the locations with maximum forces are highlighted.

Who and How Many Can Work from Home? Evidence from Task Descriptions and Norwegian Job Advertisements.

The Covid-19 crisis has forced great societal changes, including forcing many to work from home (WFH) in an effort to limit the spread of the disease. The ability to work from home has long been considered a perk, but we have few estimates of how many jobs are actually possible to be performed from home. This paper proposes a method to estimate the share of these jobs. For each occupation, we obtain a WFH friendly measure by asking respondents from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to evaluate whether the corresponding tasks can be performed from home based on the descriptions from the International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO-08) standard. The share of WFH friendly jobs in an economy can then be estimated by combining these measures with the labor statistics on occupational employments. Using Norway as an illustrating example, we find that approximately 38\% of Norwegian jobs can be performed at home. The Norwegian results also suggest that the pandemic and the government’s attempts to mitigate this crisis may have a quite uneven impact on the working population. Those who are already disadvantaged are often less likely to have jobs that can be performed from home.

Modern status and ways of development of round billet production technology by steel continuous casting

Production of round billets by steel continuous casting, widely used for manufacturing seamless pipes, railway wheels and tyres, quality long rolled products etc., is widely spread in the world steel industry. Constant search for improved design of CCM takes place, separate parts of existing machines are being perfected. An analysis of collected in the world practice experience of solving problems, related to production of round continuously casted billets, enables to choose proper technical solutions for each particular situation, to determine rational parameters of technology. History of development of round continuously casted billets production technology considered. Data on their modern producers presented. Peculiarities of steel continuous casting technology, as well as reasons of defects of round continuously casted billets have been discussed. Classification of basic kinds of cracks of round continuously casted billet presented. Basic problems during production of round continuously casted billets relate to ovality formation, mainly because of unevenness of heat-away in the mold. The increased ovality can lead to formation of internal and external cracks. Ways of solving problems of defects formation and ways of round continuously casted billet technology perfection summarized. Application of methods of mathematical simulation for a technology, which enables to produce defectless billets considered. It was shown, that basic measures to decrease number of billet defects, relate to setting rational parameters of temperature-speed mode, transfer to internal mold profile, corresponding to the billet shrinkage. Another measure is elimination of uneven impact of the liquid metal stream on the solidifying shell in the area of small and big radius. A perspective direction of round continuously casted billets production technology perfection is application of soft reduction methods and electromagnetic stirring of the liquid metal.

Nigerians crying for availability of electricity and water: a key driver to life coping measures for deepening stay at home inclusion to slow covid-19 spread

The COVID-19 pandemic is a tethering on the edge of a make or mar moment in the history of the world as it is chiefly a crisis for health and a tragedy for humanity, but it also poses economic consequences that is far-reaching. In emerging countries like Nigeria, it has already disrupted the livelihoods of millions of individuals, with uneven impact among poor and vulnerable households and small and informal industries and the disruption pace is expected to accelerate the crisis in the coming weeks. No nation or community is exempt; in oil-rich countries such as Nigeria, the challenges of COVID-19 is exacerbated by falling price in crude. The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has raised sundry questions for sectors including water and energy around the world. While workers provide services in a geographic areas, operational and systematic concerns and understandings apply across national borders. This paper draw attention to the importance of electricity and water, sanitation and hygiene in Nigeria especially in areas such as slums, given that many Nigerians live in overcrowded and deprived areas facing major socioeconomic impediments, to these efforts, the important contribution to handwashing is to help reduce disease spread and also highlight the significance of water as an industry that is so critical to the well-being of societies, economies, and the environment and key for the current health crisis. The water and electricity sector should be proactive in doing its part to address COVID-19 pandemic and the ramifications of its spread. As the continent's leaders take decisive action in the formal, informal and development sectors to save human lives and shield trades, households and geographic economies from the pandemic consequence. Therefore, the responsibility is up to all governments and their development partners to improve health care services and other measures that are critical by providing near constant electricity and water supply for its citizenry to help contribute immensely to social distancing, deepening stay at home, in order to slow the spread of COVID-19 both in the short and long run and teaching of public health that is based on systematic evidence to decrease the distress and apprehension caused by distorted and misinformation through social media. In particular, Nigerian government should act swiftly and decisively to provide robust support and not just the rhetoric of stimulus announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria for significant national public health and health care programs, development of medical countermeasure, domestic preparedness programs and response instruments and global cooperationto reduce the virus impacts. Prompt action now is needed to avoid worst case health and economic consequences.

Wide State-Level Variation In Commercial Health Care Prices Suggests Uneven Impact Of Price Regulation.

Prices charged for health care services in the commercial insurance market are high and vary widely within and between market areas. As a result, prices have been the focus of much policy debate. We extended the literature on commercial prices by examining state-level price variation in the commercial market, relative to Medicare, for a broader set of states and a wider set of services than had been examined. We assessed the potential impact on provider revenue of setting commercial prices at Medicare rates. Consistent with the existing literature, we found that average commercial prices for inpatient and outpatient facility services were about double Medicare fees, while commercial prices for professional services were about 60percent higher. Finally, average hospital revenue would fall about 35percent if commercial prices were limited to Medicare rates, but this would vary widely by state. If Medicaid rates were also increased to match Medicare rates, hospital revenue would likely fall by about 30percent. Given the potentially large impact, policies to address the market failures that lead to high and variable prices in the commercial insurance sector are needed, but they should be structured to avoid the large disruptions that could occur if there were a very rapid transition to Medicare rates in the commercial market.