Suchergebnisse

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the realities of Algerian employee relations and the challenges autonomous trade unionists encounter in their activities, which are normally far removed from the eyes of the international community.


Design/methodology/approach
– In total, 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Algerian autonomous trade union leaders, union members and non-members. The collected data were analysed using a thematic approach.


Findings
– The interview results brought into relief the challenges of Algerian trade unionism with the following four themes: first, scepticism towards the only government-affiliated trade union in Algeria; second, the relationship between autonomous unions and the government; third, strike actions and intimidation/harassment; and fourth, views of non-trade unionists and the future of Algerian trade unionism.


Research limitations/implications
– The sensitivity of the topic and widespread fear limited the number of interviewees and the length of interviews.


Social implications
– This paper provides recent empirical evidence reflecting the contemporary nature of employee relations in Algeria, and its discussions consider the prerequisites for a more effective protection of workers' rights in Algeria.


Originality/value
– This study addresses the lack of examination of trade union activities in North Africa and in Algeria in particular. Whereas studies on employment relations in emerging economies have been conducted mainly at the macro level, this study makes important contributions by providing a first micro-level insight into the realities of trade unionism in Algeria through giving voice to those who struggle daily to protect workers' rights.

Purpose– This paper aims to analyze the impact of three types of embedded ties, namely, specialized complementary resources, idiosyncratic investments and knowledge sharing, on the innovation capacity of firms. It also examines the particularities of the machine-tool industry.Design/methodology/approach– The evaluation of the embedded buyer-supplier ties is based on the potential sources of relational rents proposed by Dyer and Singh (1998). It also draws on Uzzi and Lancaster (2003) and Noordhoffet al.(2011), among others, to discuss the positive and negative aspects of embedded ties. Using data from a survey of 202 European machine-tool firms acting as buyers and sellers, the study proposes and evaluates a structural equation model.Findings– Only knowledge-sharing routines exert a significant positive effect on product innovation performance. Neither an increase in idiosyncratic investments nor in complementary resources and capabilities enhances innovation performance. Moreover, knowledge-sharing routines mediate in the effect of idiosyncratic investments on innovation performance.Research limitations/implications– The machine-tool industry has unique characteristics that make generalization difficult. There is also considerable difficulty associated with testing the interrelations among these embedded ties in greater depth in the long run. It is plausible to consider that these interrelations operate within a gradual process.Originality/value– This research contributes to a better understanding of the role of embedded ties on innovativeness. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous international empirical research has been published analyzing the mediation effects among specialized complementary resources, idiosyncratic investments and knowledge sharing, and their effects on the innovation capacity of firms.

As other countries of Central and Southeastern Europe, the Republic of Serbia at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century entered the process of universal transformation, which in essence represented a powerful political and economic movement for thorough changes in all parts of social and economic life. The central place in total transformational processes was taken by property, that is ownership transformation. The purpose of this research are numerous changes and the effects caused by the ownership transformation, that is privatisation in all economic activities, and in tourism as well. The research methods used in this paper are: analysis method, synthesis method, abstraction method, generalisation method, comparison method, as well as mathematical and statistical methods. The research results show that the effects of the privatisation in the tourism activities of Serbia are rather devastating. Besides, there were no necessary changes in other elements of business transformation (organisational, managerial, personnel, technological and other), what is the decrease in quality of tourist offer in Serbia and its bad position on the international tourism market. Taking into account that the Republic of Serbia has included the development of tourism amongst the priorities of its actual economic policy and development strategy, results of this research should by its originality, scientific approach to the subject of the research, quality and expertise, complete research material in this scientific field, also to point out new possibilities of Serbian tourism development to creators of economic, touristic and investment politics.

The term peacekeeping is not included in the United Nations (UN) charter. The UN defines peacekeeping as 'an operation involving military personnel, but without enforcement powers, established by the United Nations to help maintain or restore international peace and security in areas of conflict' (White 1997). During the Cold War period, peacekeeping was mainly confined to Middle East, parts of Africa and other regional conflicts, which were mainly associated with de-colonisation. The major limitations are created when the states decline to offer forces for the peacekeeping operations, as is evident in the case of recent peacekeeping operations in Africa. The UN peacekeeping underwent a great expansion along with new mandates in the early part of 1990s. This resulted in a huge increase in the requirement of peacekeepers along with a rising budget and this led to a huge gap in terms of commitment and capability needed and what was provided. Greater number of resources including peacekeeping troops were required than what was actually made available. The two most egregious failures occurred in Srebrenica, Bosnia–Herzegovina, and in Rwanda. These failures have resulted in UN taking up several new measures in order to improve the peacekeeping operations. This article tries to highlight the impending governance issues of UN along with the adopted solutions to solve the issues. It also tries to highlight South Asia's and India's stance with respect to the UN peacekeeping operations and tries to argue that South Asian Nations should rethink its policy with respect to UN peacekeeping and adopt a smarter and more strategic approach towards its future engagement.

Abstract
Human behaviors including consumption of drugs and use of personal care products, climate change, increased international travel, and the advent of water reclamation for direct potable use have led to the introduction of significant amounts of emerging organic contaminants into the aqueous environment. In addition, the lower detection limits associated with improved scientific methods of chemical analysis have resulted in a recent increase in documented incidences of these contaminants which previously were not routinely monitored in water. Such contaminants may cause known or suspected adverse ecological and/or human health effects at very low concentrations. Conventional drinking water treatment processes may not effectively remove these organic contaminants. Advanced oxidation process (AOP) is a promising treatment process for the removal of most of these emerging organic contaminants, and has been accepted worldwide as a suitable treatment process. In this study, different groups of emerging contaminants were studied for decomposition efficiency using pilot-scale UV/H2O2 oxidation setup, including EDCs, PPCPs, taste and odor (T&O), and perfluorinated compounds. Results found that MP UV/H2O2 AOP was efficient in removing all the selected contaminants except perfluorinated compounds. Study of the kinetics of the process showed that both light absorption and quantum yield of each compound affected the decomposition performance. Analysis of water quality parameters of the treated water indicated that the outcome of both UV photolysis and UV/H2O2 processes can be affected by changes in the feed water quality.

This study examined experiences and explanations of depression amongst Xhosa-speaking pregnant women, mothers, and health workers in an urban township in Cape Town, South Africa. The study was conducted as part of formative research for a randomised controlled trial to develop and evaluate a task-sharing counselling intervention for maternal depression in this setting. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 12 depressed and 9 nondepressed pregnant women and mothers of young babies, and 13 health care providers. We employed an in-depth framework analysis approach to explore the idioms, descriptions, and perceived causes of depression particular to these women, and compared these with the ICD-10 and DSM-5 criteria for major depression. We found that symptoms of major depression are similar in this township to those described in international criteria (withdrawal, sadness, and poor concentration), but that local descriptions of these symptoms vary. In addition, all the symptoms described by participants were directly related to stressors occurring in the women's lives. These stressors included poverty, unemployment, lack of support from partners, abuse, and death of loved ones, and were exacerbated by unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and the discovery of HIV positive status at antenatal appointments. The study calls attention to the need for specifically designed counselling interventions for perinatal depression that are responsive to the lived experiences of these women and grounded in the broader context of poor socioeconomic conditions and living environments in South Africa, all of which have a direct impact on mental health.

This special document is an original English translation of a 2015, thirty-three page (in Hebrew), Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strategy paper, marking the first time that the IDF has published an official account of its fundamental driving principles. An introductory essay by Ahmad Samih Khalidi, "On the Limitations of Military Doctrine," places the strategy document in the context of Israel's failures in the 2006 Lebanon war. The document, itself headed by a short letter from Israeli chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, encompasses a broad spectrum of grand strategy analysis, prediction, and recommendation, against a complex matrix of operational, tactical, and logistical measures. It comprises three main parts: first, a succinct "Strategy Document" that describes Israel's strategic and operational environment and that delineates the basic principles guiding its military actions (chapters 1–3); second, a description of the IDF's command structure and procedures (chapter 4); and third, the prescription of a series of follow-up steps (chapter 5). In brief bullet points, the strategy document covers national goals, threat perceptions, the domestic, regional, and international contexts, technical and technological challenges, the main functions and roles of the IDF, the different conditions (or "operating statuses") for the use of force, the importance of cyberwarfare, intelligence, questions of legitimacy, issues of command and control, resource utilization, defense capabilities, special operations, and the priorities for five years. Israel's traditional concerns with the threat from Arab states are downgraded in favor of the threat posed by sub- or non- state actors (Hamas and Hezbollah), and "distant" players (Iran).

Objective:The objective of this article is to evaluate the impact of the Revised National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Lifting Equation (RNLE).Background:The RNLE has been used extensively as a risk assessment method for prevention of low back pain (LBP). However, the impact of the RNLE has not been documented.Methods:A systematic review of the literature on the RNLE was conducted. The review consisted of three parts: characterization of the RNLE publications, assessment of the impact of the RNLE, and evaluation of the influences of the RNLE on ergonomic standards. The literature for assessing the impact was categorized into four research areas: methodology, laboratory, field, and risk assessment studies using the Lifting Index (LI) or Composite LI (CLI), both of which are the products of the RNLE.Results:The impact of the RNLE has been both widespread and influential. We found 24 studies that examined the criteria used to define lifting capacity used by the RNLE, 28 studies that compared risk assessment methods for identifying LBP, 23 studies that found the RNLE useful in identifying the risk of LBP with different work populations, and 13 studies on the relationship between LI/CLI and LBP outcomes. We also found evidence on the adoption of the RNLE as an ergonomic standard for use by various local, state, and international entities.Conclusion:The review found 13 studies that link LI/CLI to adverse LBP outcomes. These studies showed a positive relationship between LI/CLI metrics and the severity of LBP outcomes.

Today, society is shifting away from just economic measures of development to human-centered measures and value- based indicators. The SDGs are not just aimed at government but many other strategic actors, including civil society. Nested structures of responsibility for implementation will be required as some things are just not possible to achieve only by policy. A key challenge for engaging civil society in delivery of the SDGs will be to take the very impressive process and translate them into a language that people will identify with and adhere to. Additionally, it is important to recognize that a large part of humanity simply will not care about the goals and will be motivated by forces that work counter to them so new strategies must assume such. In this paper we explore the role of global cities in the global governance architecture, specifically with regards to the implementation of the SDGs in Global Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. We then provide a case study of Abu Dhabi by applying the Sustainability-Oriented Innovation Index for Airports©, with regards to the international airport's capacity to align sustainability strategies through three unique lenses of environmental, social, and technological innovation. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the collaborative responsiveness, reflexivity, and adaptability of a city and its respective airport breeds the kind of legitimacy called for by citizens and solidifies the role of cities in today's global governance architecture as a main actor for the implementation of the SDGs.

International audience ; In this paper, co-written from the double critical perspective of geography and literature, we will develop the idea that Dickens, admittedly a celebrated specialist in portraits, also took an active part in the controversial contemporary redefinition of the rhetoric of landscape. We aim to show that in his fiction, he can be seen to illustrate methodically that landscape is a semiotic structure that needs to be historicized, a culturally constructed process and certainly not a neutral objective reproduction of the land, in other words that " landscape imagery is contested political terrain " (Pugh, 2), a national idiom to legitimize political authority. It was also a burning issue at a time when landscapes were moving fast, made mobile by structural changes in the management of space brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the development of cities. In this light, we will thus show how Dickens staged, discussed and moved away from institutional normative forms of representation, and how he came up with dissident innovative forms, shifting the viewpoint in multiple ways in order to elaborate his own rhetoric of landscape, to contest the ideological bases of dominant representation and eventually to make the notion his own—basically turning landscape into an active site of ideological resistance. The input of geography in this study of Dickensian landscapes is not to be understood as a way to legitimize literary analysis by resorting to material theories, as a " scientific stamp. " It reads more like cross-fertilisation, based on the realization

Flows of illicit money can damage the integrity, stability and reputation of the financial sector, and threaten the internal market of the Union as well as international development. Money laundering, terrorism financing and organized crime remain significant problems which should be addressed at Union level.' This legal analysis is geared towards showcasing the major concerns which arise from the crime of money laundering and its intrinsic link with terrorism-financing. Recent global enforcement actions against financial institutions highlight the importance of compliance with anti-money laundering and terrorism-financing regulations. Such enforcement actions are clear proof that despite the considerable progress made in mitigating risks posed by money laundering and rooting out prior wrongdoing, financial institutions are still falling short of regulators' expectations. The focal-point of this study is the recently-enacted Fourth EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive. Salient aspects of this Directive shall be addressed all throughout and a comparative analysis shall be carried out with regard to the changes it has brought about from previous EU anti-money laundering Directives, specifically the Third AML Directive. Apart from analyzing the impact of the new AML provisions on Maltese legislation, other jurisdictions shall also be taken into consideration, so as to better highlight the effect of this new Directive on cross-border jurisdictions and businesses. Furthermore, the main pitfalls of AMLD4 shall be examined and possible solutions for future ameliorations shall be put forward. ; peer-reviewed

In the article, we attempt to assess the investment attractiveness of the New EU Member States, using the Visegrad Group countries as examples. This study is structured as follows: First, it explores the existing literature on factors of investment attractiveness. Further we examine inward foreign direct investment flows in the Visegrad Group countries against the global performance in the area from 1990 to 2013. Next we discuss the investment attractiveness of New Member States of the European Union in selected international rankings, paying special attention to the positions occupied by the four analysed countries. The final part examines the correlation between selected variables characteristic of investment attractiveness and the inflow of foreign investment. The study is based on statistical methods (Spearman's rank correlation and Pearson correlation). At the end we present our conclusions. ; W artykule podjęto próbę oceny atrakcyjności inwestycyjnej państw Grupy Wyszehradzkiej. Praca składa się z czterech części. W pierwszej dokonano przeglądu literatury ze szczególnym naciskiem na badania empiryczne dotyczące atrakcyjności inwestycyjnej. Następnie przeanalizowano napływ zagranicznych inwestycji bezpośrednich do krajów Grupy Wyszehradzkiej na tle świata w latach 1990–2013. W kolejnej części omówiono atrakcyjność inwestycyjną nowych państw członkowskich UE w wybranych rankingach międzynarodowych, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem miejsca, jakie zajmują w nich Polska, Czechy, Węgry i Słowacja. W ostatniej części zbadano zależności pomiędzy wybranymi zmiennymi określającymi atrakcyjność inwestycyjną a napływem BIZ. W badaniu wykorzystano metody statystyczne (współczynnik korelacji Pearsona oraz współczynnik korelacji rang Spearmana). Artykuł kończy podsumowanie.

Climate warming and increasing aridity have impacted diverse ecosystems in the Mediterranean region since at least the 1970s. Pinus pinea L. has significant environmental and socio-economic importance for the Iberian Peninsula, so a detailed understanding of its response to climate change is necessary to predict its status under future climatic conditions. However, variability of climate and uncertainties in dendroclimatological approach complicate the understanding of forest growth dynamics. We use an ensemble approach to analyze growth-climate responses of P. pinea trees from five sites along a latitudinal gradient in Spain over time. The growth responses to April-June precipitation totals were stronger in the north than in the south. Since the 1950s, the sensitivity of growth to April-June precipitation increased in the north and decreased in the south. Meteorological drought usually started in May in the southern sites, but in June-July in the northern sites. The water deficit in the southern sites is thus greater and more limiting for tree growth, and this likely accounts for the lower growth sensitivity during these months. Our results indicate that P. pinea has a high degree of plasticity, suggesting the species will withstand changing climatic conditions. However, growth response to drought regimes varies among P. pinea populations, suggesting that different populations have different capacities for acclimation to warmer and drier climate, and this may influence future vegetation composition. ; Spanish Ministry of Econ omy and Competitiveness, European Union (FEDER funds), Spanish National Agriculture Research Institute (project ref: RTA2013-00011-C02-02), International Campus of Excellence for Environment, Biodiversity and Global Change (CeiCambio)

International audience ; The efficiency of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy in mitigating the negative effects of agricultural intensification on the landscape and biodiversity is increasingly being questioned. Enhancing a reciprocal understanding of various stakeholders' mental models of agro-social-ecosystems has been proposed to trigger changes in both policy design and farmers' behaviors. However, the relationship between farmers' mental models and practices is rarely considered. Here, we explore the relationship between farmers' individual mental models (IMMs) of the agricultural landscape and their land management practices. To do so, we developed a theoretical and methodological framework grounded in cognitive psychology and farming system research for eliciting and comparing IMMs and land management practices. We applied this framework in the Coteaux de Gascogne territory, a hilly crop-livestock region in southern France. We identified groups of farmers according to their cropland and semi-natural habitat management practices. The results of our quantitative and qualitative comparisons of mental models between farmer groups showed that the way of farming partly relates to farmers' ways of thinking about the landscape and highlighted the heterogeneity of IMMs between and within farmer groups. We found evidence that path-dependent factors that constrain farmers' practices can modify their mental models, e.g., the role of agricultural machinery. Our study illustrates how an interdisciplinary framework coupling mental models and farming systems approaches provides an opportunity to enhance our understanding of the relationships between farmers' world views and their practices. Moreover, our results challenge current ways of thinking and designing biodiversity conservation policies in farmed landscapes.

International audience ; On the eve of the First World War, sport had become a phenomenon. On the one hand, the first sports institutions were being structured and started organizing regulated competitions; on the other hand, sport was at the crossroads of performance, technological development and bourgeois sociability – all characteristic of the Belle Époque. The history of sport, whether concerned with sport disciplines and their institutions taken separately or with political or social issues, does not often provide opportunities to capture a clear view of sport in everyday life.Through the analysis of a photographic corpus, we shall try to catch this view, following the reports of the man who is considered today as one of the very first sports photographers in France: Jules Beau. Following the itinerary of this man – a Parisian, member of the French Touring-Club and a cycling enthusiast – offers a special vision (with all the limitations imposed by a monographic study) of the sport phenomenon between 1894 and 1913, the period over which Jules Beau was involved in this activity.The corpus we used for our study comprises 36 volumes of about 100 pages each, which represents some 6,000 photos. Even though the portraits of cyclists make up a large part of the corpus, we shall focus more on Jules Beau's photographic reports displaying the sports events offered to the Parisians of the time. Based on these reports, we shall depict the various facets of the sports phenomenon at the time of the Belle Époque: official competitions, festivals, demonstrations.