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This article builds on Yohe's seminal piece on mitigative capacity, which elaborates 'determinants' of mitigative capacity, also reflected in the IPCC's third assessment report. We propose a revised definition, where mitigative capacity is a country's ability to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions or enhance natural sinks. By ''ability'' we mean skills, competencies, fitness, and proficiencies that a country has attained which can contribute to GHG emissions mitigation. A conceptual framework is proposed, linking mitigative capacity to a country's sustainable development path, and grouping the factors influencing mitigative capacity into three main sets: economic factors, institutional ones, and technology. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis of factors is presented, showing how these factors vary across countries. We suggest that it is the interplay between the three economic factors—income, abatement cost and opportunity cost—that shape mitigative capacity. We find that income is an important economic factor influencing mitigative capacity, while abatement cost is important in turning mitigative capacity into actual mitigation. Technology is a critical mitigative capacity, including the ability to absorb existing climate-friendly technologies or to develop innovative ones. Institutional factors that promote mitigative capacity include the effectiveness of government regulation, clear market rules, a skilled work force and public awareness. We briefly investigate such as high abatement cost or lack of political willingness that prevent mitigative capacity from being translated into mitigation.

The "South - North Dialogue" Proposal, developed by researchers from developing and industrialised countries, outlined equitable approaches to mitigation. These approaches were based on the criteria of responsibility, capability and potential to mitigate, and include deep cuts in industrialised (Annex I) countries and differentiated mitigation commitments for developing countries. This paper quantitatively analyses the implications of the proposal for countries' emissions and costs. The analysis focuses on a "political willingness" scenario and four stabilisation scenarios. The analysis shows that stringent stabilisation targets imply that many developing countries would have to take on quantitative mitigation obligations by 2030, even when the Annex I countries take on ambitious mitigation commitments far beyond the Kyoto obligations. The "political willingness scenario" will probably not suffice to limit a warming of the Earth's atmosphere to below 2 °C.

This paper outlines the larger methodological, logistical and political challenges confronting survey researchers in emerging democracies in developing country contexts, particularly in Africa. Overcoming these challenges often means that comparative social scientific surveys of public opinion are designed, executed, and received in very different ways than in the West. But rather than simply seeing these differences as blemishes that need to be gradually ameliorated, we may have much more to learn from the globalization of public opinion research than the simple accumulation of more data from exotic settings.

Democratic South Africa was born amidst high hopes for the reduction of income poverty and inequality from their high levels under apartheid. The reality has been disappointing: despite steady economic growth, income poverty probably rose in the late 1990s before a muted decline in the early 2000s, income inequality has probably grown, and life expectancy has declined. The proximate causes are clear: persistent unemployment and low demand for unskilled labour, strong demand for skilled labour, an unequal education system, and a social safety net that is unusually widespread but nonetheless has large holes. It is also clear that economic growth alone will not reduce poverty or inequality. Pro-poor social policies are important, but not as important as a pro-poor economic growth path. Unfortunately, there is little sign of the political conditions changing to push the state towards the promotion of a more pro-poor pattern of economic growth. There is some chance of parametric reforms of the welfare state. Overall, however, it is likely that, after another ten years of democracy, unemployment and poverty rates will remain high, despite significant redistribution through cash transfers, and incomes will continue to be distributed extremely unequally.

The renaissance of studies of class in post-apartheid South Africa has not produced any certainty as to the optimal delineation of classes in empirical analysis. This paper uses data from a 2005 survey in Cape Town to examine the relationships between occupational (or objective) class, self-reported (or subjective) class, race, neighbourhood income and household income. Cape Town is not an industrial city, and thus has small working classes, but (like all South African cities) it does have high unemployment. There are clear relationships between race, education and occupational class (unsurprisingly, given the history of apartheid). The relationships between occupational class, incomes and self-reported class are less clear. The paper concludes with a preliminary analysis of some of the possible consequences of class, in terms of perceptions of the social structure and of government policy, and of racial identities and attitudes.

A survey of 103 sugarcane farmers on the KwaZulu-Natal coast was conducted in order to analyse the impact of the Sectoral Determination for Farm Workers (2002) on South African agriculture. The sample was separated into a high wage paying North Coast and lower wage paying South Coast. Typically farmers were unable to distinguish between the impact of the Sectoral Determination and other labour laws. Results indicate that the impact of the legislation is similar in each region. No respondents reported mass retrenchment, but job shedding is disguised by not replacing workers (especially unskilled workers) that leave the farm. A sizeable number of growers (17 per cent on the South Coast and 44 per cent on the North Coast) have reduced the working week to 27 hours (or 36 hours in the Felixton Mill Group Area) enabling them to pay wages on an hourly, rather than a weekly basis. This strategy reduces the effective wage. About 40 per cent of growers have reduced the in-kind benefits to their workers. About half of respondents indicated that they are likely to increase their use of seasonal and contract labour in future. Although a majority of respondents indicated that they considered mechanisation of the harvesting process, cost and topographical factors currently does not make this a serious alternative to manual harvesting. However, because of increased wage costs and the relatively strong currency in recent years, chemical weed control has become an attractive alternative to manual weed control.

Proceeding of: 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. EMBS 2007, Lyon, France, 22-26 August, 2007. ; Advances in Information and Communication Technologies, ICT, are bringing new opportunities and use cases in the field of systems and Personal Health Devices used for the telemonitoring of citizens in Home or Mobile scenarios. At a time of such challenges, this review arises from the need to identify robust technical telemonitoring solutions that are both open and interoperable. These systems demand standardized solutions to be cost effective and to take advantage of standardized operation and interoperability. Thus, the fundamental challenge is to design plug-&-play devices that, either as individual elements or as components, can be incorporated in a simple way into different Telecare systems, perhaps configuring a personal user network. Moreover, there is an increasing market pressure from companies not traditionally involved in medical markets, asking for a standard for Personal Health Devices, which foresee a vast demand for telemonitoring, wellness, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and ehealth applications. However, the newly emerging situations imply very strict requirements for the protocols involved in the communication. The ISO/IEEE 11073 family of standards is adapting and moving in order to face the challenge and might appear the best positioned international standards to reach this goal. This work presents an updated survey of these standards, trying to track the changes that are being fulfilled, and tries to serve as a starting-point for those who want to familiarize themselves with them. ; This research work has been partially supported by projects TSI2005-07068-C02-01 and TSI2004-04940-C02-01 from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spanish Government), and a personal grant to M. Galarraga from Navarre Regional Government.

Proceeding of: 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), Cité Internationale, Lyon, France, August 23-26, 2007. ; This paper presents a proof-of-concept design of a patient monitoring solution for Intensive Care Unit (ICU). It is end-to-end standards-based, using ISO/IEEE 11073 (X73) in the bedside environment and EN13606 to communicate the information to an Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) server. At the bedside end a plug-and-play sensor network is implemented, which communicates with a gateway that collects the medical information and sends it to a monitoring server. At this point the server transforms the data frame into an EN13606 extract, to be stored on the EHR server. The presented system has been tested in a laboratory environment to demonstrate the feasibility of this end-to-end standardsbased solution. ; This research work has been partially supported by projects TSI2005-07068-C02-01 and TSI2004-04940-C02-01 from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spanish Government), and a personal grant to both M.Galarraga and M. Martínez-Espronceda from Navarre Regional Government.

Reverse logistics (RL) has strategic importance. However, little is known concerning what motivates firms to adopt RL systems. Drawing on stakeholder theory formulations, organizational slack, and the manager's strategic stance concept, this article develops a model that proposes external, internal, and individual factors that affect the implementation of RL programs. Our framework considers three major explicative variables: the attributes of the stakeholder (power, legitimacy and urgency), organizational slack for RL programs, and the manager's strategic posture. The study draws on a sample of 118 Spanish companies and uses a probit model to determine the influence of these factors on the probability of firms to implement RL systems. The study finds that customers, employees, and the government salience in terms of RL activities and manager's progressive posture have a significant influence on the final decision of implanting RL programs. Conversely, the study finds that shareholder salience negatively impacts the decision. ; Fundación BBVA and the project "Estrategias en las empresas europeas internacionales y medioambiente: análisis de recursos humanos, producción y negocio" for supporting this research. They also acknowledge the help of Prof. Dr. Carlos Larrinaga in providing access to financial statements. They are indebted as well to the Spanish Minister of Education and Science and the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid which have provided financial support under the research projects entitled "Diseño e implantación de las estrategias medioambientales de aprovisionamiento, fabricación y comercialización: relación con el rendimiento organizativo" (sec2001-1578-c02- 01), "La dirección de operaciones y las teorías de stakeholders y de recursos y capacidades. Implicaciones estratégicas en la gestión del ciclo de vida de los equipos informáticos" (SEJ04- 07877-C02-02),. "Efectos de los distintos tipos de relaciones entre las empresas y sus mercados: prácticas de marketing, orientación al mercado y resultados económicos", and " Innovación versus imitacón: un test de la capacidad innovadora de las empresas de la Comunidad de Madrid ". ; Publicado

The dynamics of a laminar starting jet are explored in a series of laboratory experiments and numerical simulations. We identify new, objective methods for characterizing the leading vortex ring, enabling robust comparisons with results from a numerical model. Observations of circulation in the initial vortex ring and for the total jet are reported along with strain rate at the leading stagnation point. Growth and pairing of shear instabilities trailing the leading vortex ring is observed. Development of these secondary vortices and their subsequent interactions with the leading vortex has significant effects on the characteristics of the primary vortex ring. Strong fluctuations in strain rate at the leading edge are associated with the pairing of the initial vortex ring with a trailing secondary ring ; Support for this research was provided by the Spanish MEC and European Union under Projects # ENE2005-08580-C02-01 and DPI2005-08654-C04-01 ; Publicado

This paper covers the main issues that must be solved in order to design and analyse the performance of Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) with the aid of simulation tools. We review state-of-the-art channel models to account for small- and large-scale propagation conditions in waveform- and system-level simulations. When dealing with waveform simulations, we also look at Montecarlo and importance sampling techniques that allow efficient estimation of error probabilities. Additionally, discrete channel models are introduced to efficiently link both waveform- and system-level approaches and we point out some methods to obtain the model parameters that are suitable for the wireless environment. The discussion of these techniques is complemented with two application examples that show the use of the different simulation levels for system design and performance study. With the paradigm of Bluetooth piconets we illustrate the usefulness of discrete channel models and we consider the design of an OFDM-based WPAN system to exemplify simulation from a waveform-level point of view. ; This work has been partially funded by European Commission (IST-2001–34157), Spanish Government (TIC2002–03498) and Madrid Community (UC3M-TEC-05–027). ; Publicado

Este artículo examina la relación existente entre la naturaleza de las Cajas de Ahorros y su éxito en términos de cuotas de mercado durante el siglo XX. Analiza los factores clave que han posibilitado este éxito competitivo de las Cajas de Ahorros, tales como: su capacidad para promover el ahorro, cooperar con la política económica del gobierno, adaptarse a circunstancias cambiantes, operar en áreas geográficas concretas y cooperar entre ellas. Finalmente, el artículo se centra en el factor mencionado en último lugar. Se recurre al modelo de cooperación competitiva para explicar el destacado papel desempeñado por la Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros para hacer posible la alianza estratégica entre las Cajas de Ahorros españolas. ; This paper explores the relationship between the nature of Spanish savings banks and the extent of their market success during the twentieth century. It deals with the key factors which have made such a good performance possible, including their ability to promote private saving, to cooperate with government economic policy, to adapt to changing circumstances, to operate in particular geographical areas, and to cooperate with one another. Finally, the paper deals in depth with this last factor. The competitive cooperation model is used to explain the outstanding role of the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks in making the strategic alliance between the Spanish savings banks possible.

Este ensayo presenta resultados de estimaciones de estaturas medias para diversas regiones de Argentina durante el período 1850-1950. Esta evidencia, tomada de registros de reclutas y prisioneros, es utilizada para cuestionar algunas de las generalizaciones sobre el crecimiento económico argentino, basadas en datos de ingresos per-cápita y salarios. Se sostiene que, en términos de estatus nutricional y de salud, la era del progreso liberal derramó menos bienestar que el esperado. Algo similar ocurrió con el crecimiento agro-exportador de principios del siglo XX. Por el contrario, el período conocido como la «gran demora» —el período de inter-guerras— fue testigo de notables aumentos de bienestar biológico, particularmente en la década de 1930. Se sugiere también que durante la segunda guerra mundial y los primeros gobiernos peronistas, las estimaciones sobre alturas indican un retraso nutricional y de salud en el conurbano bonaerense. El ensayo presenta además datos sobre la distribución regional de las alturas, que reflejan un alto grado de desigualdad regional hacia la década de 1920. ; This essay presents recent estimates of average heights for different regions of Argentina during the period 1850-1950. This evidence, taken from registers of prisoners and military recruits, serves to question some traditional views of Argentine economic growth based on income and wage data. The essay suggests that the era of liberal progress resulted in less welfare among the lower classes than is usually assumed. A similar situation occurred during the agrarian-export growth of the first decade of the 20th century. In contrast, the period known as the «great delay» witnessed notable improvements in biological welfare, particularly during the 1930s. In addition, height estimates indicate that during WWII and the first Peronist administrations there was a nutritional setback in the Buenos Aires industrial belt. Data on the provincial distribution of heights for the 1920s show an important degree of regional inequality.

La historia social, la historia política y la historia de las relaciones internacionales confluyen, entre otros, en un ámbito, el de los movimientos migratorios de carácter político, los exiliados y sus destinos, aspectos que desempeñan un papel primordial entre las fuerzas que configuran la política exterior de los Estados. El fenómeno está articulado en torno a un conjunto de correspondencias que giran fundamentalmente sobre tres cuestiones: el influjo de las relaciones internacionales en la conformación de la migración internacional; la instrumentalización de las migraciones para los fines de las políticas exteriores nacionales, y, finalmente, la inevitable proyección de las políticas nacionales en la dimensión internacional de los Estados. Las páginas que siguen analizarán estos tres paradigmas aplicados en un tramo cronológico de nuestra historia reciente, 1939-1956, y en una de las columnas sustentadoras del Régimen, el anticomunismo. Nuestro propósito es, pues, el de examinar las causas y las consecuencias de la presencia en España de exiliados anticomunistas procedentes de la Europa Central y Oriental así como la manipulación de la misma para los objetivos de la dimensión exterior del Estado franquista. ; Social History, Political History and History of International Relations meet, in an area of political migratory movements, one of the exiles and their destinations. That plays a central role in the forces that shape state foreign policy. The phenomenon is based on a group of relationships determined by three fundamental issues: the influence of international relations in the development of international migration; the use of migration to satisfy aims of national foreign policy, and, finally, the inevitable projection of national policies into the international sphere of the countries. The following pages will study these three questions in a chronological sequence of our recent history, 1939-1956. Also, we will examine the anti-communism, one of the central pillars of the Regimen. Our aim, then, is to examine the origin and the consequences of the presence of anti-communists exiles in Spain, coming from the East and Centre Europe as well as the manipulation of this situation in order to achieve the external objectives of the State. ; Publicado

En la mayoría de los países europeos, entre ellos Francia, la regulación de la actividad comercial minorista se realiza en dos ámbitos diferentes, que trabajan independientemente. En el ámbito del planeamiento urbanístico, se necesita una licencia de construcción, mientras que en el ámbito comercial es una autorización administrativa de apertura del local. En otros países, como Gran Bretaña o Suecia, solamente se solicita un permiso de planeamiento para situar el edificio que alojará la actividad comercial. En principio, el modelo de "doble camino" se puede seguir de varias maneras, para determinar las áreas o del número de comercios minoristas. En Francia, la elección de un modelo donde la regulación, por vía administrativa, tiene lugar con una autorización comercial, provoca la adopción de sistemas de programación cuantitativos de las superficies comerciales. A menudo, los estudios e investigaciones que se solicitan para justificarlo parecen tener como objetivo encontrar un "mejor" equilibrio entre la demanda de los consumidores y la oferta de la actividad comercial minorista. ; In most European countries, among them France, the regulations of retail activities are achieved in two different fields, which work independently. In the field of town and regional planning, the procedure's goal is to get a building permission, while a commercial authorization is given to start the retail activity. In other countries, such as Great Britain or Sweden, only a planning permission is requested to locate buildings in which retail activities are run. In principle, the "double path" model can be followed in several ways, with different levels of graduation for the predetermination of the areas or number of retail activities. In France, it seems that the choice of a model where the regulation is managed by a commercial authorization has led the government authorities to adopt more and more a quantitative approach to decide the amount of areas or retail activities to leave. The studies and inquiries, which are requested to justify this approach, often seem to aim at finding a vain "best" balance between the demand of the consumers and the offer of retail activities.