Choosing the Lesser of Two Evils: Explaining Multinational Banking Groups��� Push for Supranational Oversight in the EU

European Union Series

The Economics of Rubber Based Industry in Kerala

The importance of industrialisation in achiering rapid economic growth has been recognised in India's development strategy ever since the inception of economic planning in the country. Being the secondary sector in the generation of national income. industry contributes significantly to the process of economic development. Extensive debates have taken place on the nature of the industrialisation strategy to be pursued in the economy since Independence. This is reflected in the industrial policy which evolved through the various five year plans and policy resolutions. Stupendous efforts have been made by the government since the commencement of planning and particularly since the 1960s to industrialise the Indian economy and develop the infrastructural base for sustained industrial development. It is difficult to assess the performance of the industrial sector over the past three decades with respect to the broad objectives of industrialisation. However. there are certain areas in which the achievements have been clearly significant.

Conceptualisation Of Model For Studying Consumer Purchase Behaviour Of Passenger Cars

Automobile Industry in India is influenced by the presence of national and multi-national manufacturers. The presence of many manufacturers and brands in the state provides many choices to the customer. The current market for car manufacturers has been transformed from a monopoly of one or two manufacturers in the seventies to oligopoly of many manufacturers in the current marketing scenario. The main objective of the research paper is to explore and conceptualize various parameters and develop a model, which influence the purchase patterns of passenger cars in the State of Kerala. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to come up with a model, which shall facilitate further study on the consumer purchase behaviour patterns of passenger car owners in the State of Kerala, India. The author intends to undertake further quantitative analysis to verify and validate the model so developed. The main methods used for this paper are secondary research on available material, depth interview of car dealers, car financing agencies and car owners in the city of Cochin, in Kerala State in India. The depth interviews were conducted with the use of prepared questionnaire for car dealers, car customers and car financing agencies. The findings resulted in the identification of the parameters that influence the consumer purchase behaviour of passenger cars and the formulation of the model, which will be the basis for the further research of the author. The paper will be of tremendous value to the existing and new car manufacturers both indigenous and foreign, to formalize and strategies their policies towards an effective marketing strategy, so as to market their models in the State, which is known for its high literacy, consumerism and higher educational penetration

Marine yeast Candida MCCF 101 as feed supplement in aquaculture: nutritional quality, optimization of large scale production and evaluation of its protective effect on Koi carp from Aeromonas infection

Marine yeast have been regarded as safe and showing a beneficial impact on biotechnological process. It provides better nutritional and dietary values indicating their potential application as feed supplements in aquaculture. Brown et al. (1996) evaluated all the marine yeasts characterised with high protein content, carbohydrate, good amino acid composition and high levels of saturated fats. However, there is paucity of information on marine yeasts as feed supplements and no feed formulation has been found either in literature or in market supplemented with them. This statement supported by Zhenming et al. (2006) reported still a lack of feed composed of single cell protein (SCP) from marine yeasts with high content of protein and other nutrients. Recent research has shown that marine yeasts also have highly potential uses in food, feed, medical and biofuel industries as well as marine biotechnology (Chi et al., 2009; 2010). Sajeevan et al. (2006; 2009a) and Sarlin and Philip (2011) demonstrates that the marine yeasts Candida sake served as a high quality, inexpensive nutrient source and it had proven immunostimulatory properties for cultured shrimps. This strain has been made part of the culture collection of National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health, Cochin University of Science and Technology as Candida MCCF 101. Over the years marine yeasts have been gaining increased attention in animal feed industry due to their nutritional value and immune boosting property.Therefore, the present study was undertaken, and focused on the nutritional quality, optimization of large scale production and evaluation of its protective effect on Koi carp from Aeromonas infection

Implication of Trade, Livelihood and Employment Exclusion among Workers in Plantation Sector in Kerala

The first part of the study has focused on the trends in area, production and productivity comparing the state���s performance with of national level performance. Also an attempt was made to understand the trends in commodity price over the years especially in the post liberalization period from the early 1990s. Plantation commodities occupy an important share in the country���s export basket and thereby earning foreign exchange to the national exchequer. Taking into consideration the competitive dimension of natural rubber, cardamom and pepper in the export market was analyzed to see penetration of these commodities in the world market.The second part of the study has tried to understand the plantation workers livelihood by understand the employment generation in the sector. Livelihood assets of plantation workers were analyzed to understand the nature of ownership of various assets. Understanding the poor quality and ownership of various livelihood assets and their relative deprivation the study also tried to understand the income-expenditure patterns and the nature of indebtedness among workers and the factors responsible for deprivation and thereby social exclusion.Area, Production and productivity trends of rubber, pepper and cardamom show a mixed picture. Area, Production trends are impacted greatly by the commodity price of the plantation crops.High correlation exists between commodity price and area and production trends of plantation crops in the state.In terms of Natural Rubber, Kerala experienced a steady growth over the years in terms of area production and productivity as the price of rubber has increasedIn terms of black pepper, the state witnessed a deceleration in growth.In the case of cardamom the area of cultivation declined whereas production increasedProductivity of natural rubber, pepper and cardamom has increased substantially over the yearsEmployment pattern in rubber and spices sub-sector has been analyzed by looking in to the commodity prices so as to see the changes in employment pattern over the years. The study has helped to understand that commodity price and employment generation in plantations are interconnected to such an extent that a fall in the commodity price have greater reverberations on the employment pattern in plantations.Livelihood analysis both in the small and large holdings show that workers belonging to rubber (large and small rubber) plantations have shown better possession of livelihood assets when compared to spices plantation workers as 16.2 percent of the spices sub-sector workers claimed about ownership of house which is considered to be an important and primary livelihood asset.In the case of natural assets like accessibility, availability and duration of water for drinking and other household purposes, the situation of workers in spices plantation still remain poor as around 80 percent of workers depending on public well public taps and canals as source of drinking water.Evaluating financial assets also give clear indication that the road to secure financial assets still remains a distant dream for the workers in plantation sectorEvaluating income and expenditure trends pinpoints to the fact that disparity in terms of income exist among the plantation workersWhile observing the employment though wage levels have improved because of improvement in commodity price of plantation crops, significant improvements are not visible in their livelihood and they remain excluded compared to other sections of the society.

Benefits of Implementing Lean Practices and the Impact of the Lean Aerospace Initiative in the Defense Aerospace Industry and Government Agencies

In the 1980���s, many United States industrial organizations started developing new production processes to improve quality, reduce cost, and better respond to customer needs and the pressures of global competition. This new paradigm was coined Lean Production (or simply ���Lean���) in the book The Machine That Changed The World published in 1990 by researchers from MIT���s International Motor Vehicle Program. In 1993, a consortium of US defense aerospace firms and the USAF Aeronautical Systems Center, together with the AFRL Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, started the Lean Aircraft Initiative (LAI) at MIT. With expansion in 1998 to include government space products, the program was renamed the Lean Aerospace Initiative. LAI���s vision is to ���Significantly reduce the cost and cycle time for military aerospace products throughout the entire value chain while continuing to improve product performance.��� By late 1998, 23 industry and 13 government organizations with paying memberships, along with MIT and the UAW were participating in the LAI.

Discovering similarities in the time use patterns of the Spanish Autonomous Communities by Fuzzy techniques

In 2000 the European Statistical Office published the guidelines for developing the Harmonized European Time Use Surveys system. Under such a unified framework, the first Time Use Survey of national scope was conducted in Spain during 2002��� 03. The aim of these surveys is to understand human behavior and the lifestyle of people. Time allocation data are of compositional nature in origin, that is, they are subject to non-negativity and constant-sum constraints. Thus, standard multivariate techniques cannot be directly applied to analyze them. The goal of this work is to identify homogeneous Spanish Autonomous Communities with regard to the typical activity pattern of their respective populations. To this end, fuzzy clustering approach is followed. Rather than the hard partitioning of classical clustering, where objects are allocated to only a single group, fuzzy method identify overlapping groups of objects by allowing them to belong to more than one group. Concretely, the probabilistic fuzzy c-means algorithm is conveniently adapted to deal with the Spanish Time Use Survey microdata. As a result, a map distinguishing Autonomous Communities with similar activity pattern is drawn. Key words: Time use data, Fuzzy clustering; FCM; simplex space; Aitchison distance

Provision of information and documentation on education in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education. 'Provisi��n de informaci��n y documentaci��n en educaci��n en el Ministerio Federal de Educaci��n de Austria'.

En un pa��s peque��o como Austria es necesario recibir est��mulo del exterior a nivel europeo respectivamente internacional para que los responsables vean lo ��til que son las iniciativas nacionales en el campo de documentaci��n educativa. Trabajar de manera comparativa en un contexto europeo ayuda a comprender mejor su propia posici��n y sirve de base para tomar decisiones y para desarrollar nuevos proyectos en el futuro. Ha crecido el inter��s en utilizar la informaci��n y documentaci��n educativa durante las ��ltimas d��cadas. Actualmente los ministros de educaci��n ya no pueden seguir su trabajo sin recurrir a todos aquellos datos que han sido recopilados en los respectivos pa��ses y presentados a trav��s de las redes europeas como EURYDICE, la red europea de informaci��n en educaci��n (htttp://www.eurydice.org).

Role of the cultural values as a key part in the implementing of healthy practices : exploratory research

El concepto de organizaci��n saludable cada vez toma m��s fuerza en el ��mbito empresarial y acad��mico, a raz��n de su enfoque integral y al impacto generado en distintos grupos de inter��s. Debido a su reciente consolidaci��n como concepto, existe un limitado cuerpo de investigaci��n en torno al tema. Para contribuir a la generaci��n de conocimiento en este sentido, se desarroll�� un estudio exploratorio el cual ten��a como objetivo identificar la relaci��n existente entre la implementaci��n de pr��cticas saludables en las organizaciones y los valores culturales. En el estudio participaron 66 sujetos a quienes se les administr�� un cuestionario compuesto por nueve variables, cinco provenientes del modelo de Hofstede (1980) y cuatro m��s que evaluaban la implementaci��n de pr��cticas organizacionales saludables. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que los valores culturales predicen la implementaci��n de pr��cticas saludables.

Actuaci��n de UNAMID (operaci��n h��brida de la Uni��n Africana y las Naciones Unidas en Darfur) en la defensa de los Derechos Humanos de las mujeres en el conflicto en Darfur (2008 ��� 2012)

El inter��s de esta monograf��a es analizar los alcances y las limitaciones de la actuaci��n de UNAMID en la defensa de los Derechos Humanos de las mujeres en el conflicto en Darfur (2008-2012). Lo anterior, para dar cuenta de que si bien UNAMID ha tenido avances significativos en el aumento de denuncias por violaci��n sexual, en la educaci��n y en la inclusi��n de la mujer en Darfur, la intervenci��n tard��a, la falta de personal cualificado y el lento despliegue ha limitado su actuaci��n para erradicar la violencia sexual como arma de guerra. Sin embargo, la baja internalizaci��n de la norma por parte del Estado de Sud��n ha sido el mayor limitante para la Misi��n de Paz. Este an��lisis se realiza mediante el concepto de Responsabilidad de proteger y el enfoque de Alexander Wendt y Nicholas Onuf.

The Proliferation of Paramilitary Groups in Southern Mexico: State Strategy or Struggle between Local Political Elites?

This study traces the origins of Mexican paramilitary groups and argues that, contrary to what most of the literature on the subject implies, they do not represent a state strategy to thwart leftist groups seeking social change. Rather, they represent battles between groups of national and local-level elites with different visions of democracy and of what constitutes good governance. The polarization inherent in this type of conflict leads local actors to have to side with one faction of elites or the other. The presence of radical leftist groups in recently colonized indigenous areas with scant state presence gives rise to a process of radicalization among local elites. There are multiple factors that explain the emergence of paramilitary groups. Aside from the post Cold War international context, there were national factors like a shift in its focus away from security matters between 1989 and 1993, and presidential policies between 1968 and 1993, that planted the seeds of leftist radicalism in a context of id modernization

Principales actores en la formaci��n de la pol��tica de modernizaci��n de transporte urbano de la Alcald��a de Maracaibo

La d��cada de los noventa marc�� el inicio de la modernizaci��n del transporte urbano en las principales ciudades de Venezuela, entre ellas en la ciudad de Maracaibo, segunda ciudad en importancia en el pa��s, proceso que tuvo lugar formalmente desde la Alcald��a de Maracaibo, pero en el cual participaron numerosos actores nacionales e internacionales que dan cuenta de un proceso que se inserta en un modelo de transporte urbano de origen for��neo, vinculado a la necesidad de poner esta actividad a tono con los requerimientos de una econom��a de mercado. El prop��sito de este trabajo es identificar la pol��tica que en definitiva se form��, los distintos actores involucrados y el rol de cada uno. Se parte de la hip��tesis que es escasa la participaci��n local en este proceso, el cual se origina en los organismos multilaterales. Los resultados revelan: 1) Los principales actores involucrados en la formaci��n de la pol��tica fueron: Banco Mundial, Consorcio Systra-Sofrrtu, Instituto Municipal de Transporte Colectivo Urbano de la ciudad de Maracaibo (IMTCUMA), Fondo Nacional de Transporte Urbano (FONTUR), Ministerio de Infraestructura (MINFRA), antiguo Ministerio de Transporte y Comunicaciones (MTC), La Universidad del Zulia, Comisi��n Presidencial del transporte para la ciudad de Maracaibo, Consejo Venezolano de transporte, Alcald��a de Maracaibo y Metro de Maracaibo; 2) La participaci��n de estos organismos fue muy variada, correspondi��ndole el rol de orientador al Banco Mundial y el resto en distintos niveles y en el rol de asesores y ejecutores; 3) La pol��tica estuvo dirigida a: reducir los tiempos de viaje de los trabajadores; incorporar empresas privadas en el sector transporte y dar prioridad en la prestaci��n del servicio en los sectores comerciales e industriales. Se concluye que la pol��tica de transporte de la ciudad de Maracaibo ha tenido lugar con la participaci��n de los organismos multilaterales y la escasa participaci��n del gobierno local y los usuarios.-----The 1990s marked the start of the urban transport modernization in the main cities of Venezuela, including Maracaibo, the second city. It was formally managed from the Mayor���s Office of Maracaibo, but involved a number of national and international actors in a process that became embedded into an urban transport model of foreign origin, linked to the need of aligning this activity with the market economy requirements. The purpose of this paper is to identify the policy that resulted in the end, the different actors involved, and the role played by each of them. The basis assumption is the scarce local participation in this process, which arose from multilateral organizations. The results reveal that: 1) The main actors involved in the policy structuring were: World Bank, Systra-Sofrrtu Consortium, Maracaibo Urban Mass Transport Institute (Instituto Municipal de Transporte Colectivo Urbano de la ciudad de Maracaibo ���IMTCUMA���), National Urban Transport Fund (Fondo Nacional de Transporte Urbano ���FONTUR���), Ministry of Infrastructure (MINFRA), former Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC), La Universidad del Zulia, President���s Transport Commission for the city of Maracaibo, Venezuelan Transport Board, Mayor���s Office of Maracaibo, and Metro of Maracaibo; 2) The participation of these organizations was very varying, the World Bank playing the directing role, and the others in different levels as advisors and implementers; 3) The policy was addressed to: reducing workers commuting times; incorporating private companies into the transport sector; and giving priority to the service provision in commercial and industrial sectors. The conclusion is that the transport policy in the city of Maracaibo occurred with the participation of multilateral organizations and very little participation of the local government and users.

Publicness of goods and violent conflict : evidence from Colombia

How the degree of publicness of goods affect violent conflict? Based on the theoretical model in Esteban and Ray (2001) we find that the effect of the degree of publicness depends on the group size. When the group is small (large), the degree of publicness increases (decreases) the likelihood of conflict. This opens an empirical question that we tackle using microdata from the Colombian conflict at the municipality level. We use three goods with different publicness degree to identify the sign of the effect of publicness on conflict. These goods are coca crops (private good), road density (public good subject to congestion) and average education quality (a purer public good). After dealing with endogeneity issues using an IV approach, we find that the degree of publicness reduces the likelihood of both paramilitary and guerrilla attacks. Moreover, coca production exacerbates conflict and the provision of both public goods mitigates conflict. These results are robust to size, geographical, and welfare controls. Policies that improve public goods provision will help to fight the onset of conflict.

Geographies of children, youth and families: an international perspective

This edited collection brings together international experts from the vibrant and growing field of geographies of children, youth and families. The book provides an overview of current conceptual and theoretical debates, and gives a wide range of examples of cutting-edge research from a variety of national contexts across the globe. The theme of 'disentangling the socio-spatial contexts of young people and/or their families' advances debates in geographies and social studies of young people and families by emphasising the context of young people's social agency. The book is designed to provide an introduction to the topic of geographies of children, youth and families and is an invaluable course text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of geography and the social sciences. This interdisciplinary text is also of likely interest to students and practitioners of education, youth work, social policy and social work.

Preparation of consistent soil data sets for modelling purposes: Secondary SOTER data for four case study areas

The common GIS-based approach to regional analyses of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and changes is to define geographic layers for which unique sets of driving variables are derived, which include land use, climate, and soils. These GIS layers, with their associated attribute data, can then be fed into a range of empirical and dynamic models. Common methodologies for collating and formatting regional data sets on land use, climate, and soils were adopted for the project Assessment of Soil Organic Carbon Stocks and Changes at National Scale (GEFSOC). This permitted the development of a uniform protocol for handling the various input for the dynamic GEFSOC Modelling System. Consistent soil data sets for Amazon-Brazil, the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of India, Jordan and Kenya, the case study areas considered in the GEFSOC project, were prepared using methodologies developed for the World Soils and Terrain Database (SOTER). The approach involved three main stages: (1) compiling new soil geographic and attribute data in SOTER format; (2) using expert estimates and common sense to fill selected gaps in the measured or primary data; (3) using a scheme of taxonomy-based pedotransfer rules and expert-rules to derive soil parameter estimates for similar soil units with missing soil analytical data. The most appropriate approach varied from country to country, depending largely on the overall accessibility and quality of the primary soil data available in the case study areas. The secondary SOTER data sets discussed here are appropriate for a wide range of environmental applications at national scale. These include agro-ecological zoning, land evaluation, modelling of soil C stocks and changes, and studies of soil vulnerability to pollution. Estimates of national-scale stocks of SOC, calculated using SOTER methods, are presented as a first example of database application. Independent estimates of SOC stocks are needed to evaluate the outcome of the GEFSOC Modelling System for current conditions of land use and climate. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.