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A growing chorus of rural leaders agrees that new opportunities are on the horizon for rural America. Economic consolidation and outmigration need not be rural America's future. The question most [...]

New approaches to rural policy are badly needed, as past reliance on subsidies and policies focused on a single sector are yielding diminishing results. Fortunately, a new frontier of policy experiments is emerging, and this frontier holds great promise in helping rural regions seize new economic potential. This was the consensus of more than 120 leading officials and rural policy experts from around the world who gathered near Washington, D.C., on March 25-26, 2004, to explore new approaches to rural policy. The conference was jointly sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Rural Policy Research Institute, and The Countryside Agency (UK). Amid a flurry of new initiatives, participants agreed that new rural policies generally have two distinguishing features. First, they focus on exploiting each region's distinct economic assets instead of trying to develop a sector that will 'lift all boats,' as in most developed nations historically, where the sector of choice for rural regions has been agriculture. Second, public funds are aimed at constructing the public goods that will spur private sector investments. Indeed, investment is a strong theme of many new initiatives, with a deliberate attempt to scale back subsidies., New approaches to rural policy are badly needed, as past reliance on subsidies and policies focused on a single sector are yielding diminishing results. Fortunately, a new frontier of policy [...]

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONSThis guideline includes 20 recommendations and four key statements that achieved consensus or strong consensus regarding the application of exoskeletons in the workplace for the prevention of musculoskeletal complaints and diseases, the general use and implementation of exoskeletons, and recommendations for risk assessment. The guideline is intended for company physicians, occupational physicians, ergonomists, occupational safety specialists, and employers, and serves as information for all other actors in practical occupational safety. Due to the lack of evidence from the scientific literature, the recommendations and key statements are the result of expert discussions that were conducted at a consensus conference in accordance with the Regulations of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany, moderated by an external consultant.

AbstractThis paper develops a spatial econometric model of transportation mode choice and tests the association between zoning and other built environment variables and the choice of auto and non-auto transportation. We provide an extensive review of spatial econometrics and demonstrate the importance of using models that treat space formally when investigating urban transportation behavior. Using a unique combination of travel, employment, and built environment datasets from Denver, Colorado, we confirm previous results that built environment variables have a small association with choice of transportation mode and show the benefits of formal spatial modeling to the traditional probit model.

STEPHAN WEILER [*] The author uses a range of structural labor market models to understand differing regional jobless rates in a state affected by pockets of structural unemployment. Four theories [...]

Lead is a neurotoxin with developmentally harmful effects in children. In the United States, over half the current flow of lead into the atmosphere is attributable to lead-formulated aviation gasoline (avgas), used in a large fraction of piston-engine aircraft. Various public interest firms have petitioned the EPA to find endangerment from and regulate lead emitted by piston-engine aircraft, though the EPA has so far ruled against such petitions. To address an EPA request for more evidence, we construct a novel data set that links time and spatially referenced blood lead data from over a million children to 448 nearby airports in Michigan. Across a series of tests, and adjusting for other known sources of lead exposure, we find that child blood lead levels (1) increase dose-responsively in proximity to airports, (2) decline measurably among children sampled in the months after 9/11, (3) increase dose-responsively in the flow of piston-engine aircraft traffic, (4) increase in the percentage of prevailing wind days drifting in the direction of a child’s residential location, and (5) behave intuitively and significantly when considering two-way and three-way interactions of our main treatment variables. To quantify the policy relevance of the results we provide a conservative estimate of the social damages attributable to avgas consumption. Damages are at least $10 per gallon, which can be compared to a pump price of about $6 per gallon.

Wenn eine Erkrankung die Leistungsfähigkeit von Beschäftigten einschränkt, ist oft die betriebliche Wiedereingliederung erschwert. Die Situation kann durch eine berufsorientierte Rehabilitation und durch intensivierte, strukturierte Kommunikation zwischen Betrieb und Therapeut deutlich verbessert werden, wobei wir verschiedene an die betriebliche Realität angepasste Strategien vorschlagen. Lorsqu’une maladie réduit les capacités dans le cadre d’une occupation professionnelle, la réintégration au sein de la société est souvent plus difficile. Cette situation peut être clairement améliorée grâce à une réhabilitation dans l’orientation professionnelle, mais également grâce à une communication structurée et intensive entre la société et le thérapeute. Dans ce cas, différentes stratégies adaptées sont proposées en fonction de la réalité professionnelle. Common rehabilitation treatment aims to increase quality of life by reducing handicaps. Their high importance is expected to further increase due to the ageing population. Most of the medical rehabilitation treatments are caused by muscle skeletal complaints, lung diseases or mental diseases. From an occupational point of view the rehabilitation outcome as well as vocational reintegration is an important goal. Sick leave causes high and still increasing costs for e. g. wage continuation and therapy as well as further problems in substitution of experienced workers.

Die Tätigkeit in Schichtarbeit kann vielfältige Einflüsse auf die Gesundheit ausüben, denn ein Arbeitszeit-System, welches mit der circadianen und sozialen Rhythmik kollidiert, führt zwangsläufig zu verschiedenen Beschwerden, sofern nicht entsprechende Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, die sowohl die betriebliche Ebene und die Arbeitszeitorganisation als auch die individuelle Lebensweise der in Schichtarbeit Tätigen betreffen. Am häufigsten werden durch die Schichtarbeiter selbst Schlafstörungen und schlafassoziierte Befindlichkeitsstörungen, gastrointestinale und unspezifische Beschwerden beklagt. Aber auch die sozialen Folgen können gravierend sein. Wissenschaftlich liegt ein Fokus auf dem möglichen Auftreten metabolischer Veränderungen, wie sie bereits im Rahmen schlafbezogener Atemstörungen und akut bei Schlafdeprivation beobachtet wurden - dies unter der Vorstellung, dass durch schlechte Schlafhygiene und ungünstige Schichtfolgen ein chronisches Schlafdefizit entstehen kann. Im Folgenden wird der aktuelle Kenntnisstand über Schlafstörungen und einer Tätigkeit in Schichtarbeit zusammengefasst und deren mögliche Auswirkungen dargestellt. Working in shift work system may result in varied influences on the general health. A working hour system colliding with circadian and social rhythm causes adverse effects if no actions were taken regarding the occupational level, the working hour organisation as well as the individual life-style of shift workers. Most often shift workers complain of sleep disorders and sleep-related disturbances of the general health, gastrointestinal and unspecific discomfort. But social effects may be severe, too. Most scientific attention is given to metabolic alterations due to shift work which were already observed within the scope of sleep apnea syndrome and with acute sleeping deprivation under the idea that a chronic deficit of sleep can originate from shy of sleeping hygiene and unfavourable sequence of work shifts. In the following the current state of knowledge about sleeping disturbances and working in shift work is summarised, possible effects are shown. Tout travail posté peut avoir des influences multiples sur la santé car un système de travail contraire au rythme circadien et social aboutit automatiquement à des troubles divers, lorsque des mesures appropriées ne sont pas prises au niveau aussi bien de l’entreprise et de l’organisation du travail qu’à celui du style de vie individuel des personnes travaillant en équipes alternantes. Ces travailleurs se plaignent le plus fréquemment de troubles du sommeil, d’altérations de l’état général associées au sommeil ainsi que de troubles gastro-intestinaux et non spécifiques. Les conséquences sociales peuvent être également graves. D’un point de vue scientifique, on se concentre sur l’apparition possible de changements au niveau du métabolisme tels qu’ils ont déjà été observés dans le cadre de troubles respiratoires liés au sommeil ; ces changements peuvent être aussi aigus en cas de privation de sommeil — tout ceci dans l’idée qu’une mauvaise hygiène du sommeil et des conséquences défavorables du travail posté peuvent entraîner un manque de sommeil chronique. Les connaissances actuelles relatives aux troubles du sommeil et à une activité de travail posté sont résumées ci-après et complétées par une présentation des conséquences possibles.