Premature exit from and delayed entrance into the less developed status: An empirical appraisal of the structural funds allocation criterion

This paper investigates the impact of the main criterion employed by the European Commission for the allocation of the largest portion of Structural Funds, based on the threshold of the 75% of European Union (EU) average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. We focus on the 2014–2020 programming period and on EU-15 regions to analyze if this criterion has penalized some of them, as a consequence of the 2004 EU enlargement, which has represented an exogenous shock in the allocation process, due to the economic backwardness of new member states. Through the application of Synthetic Control Methods and Difference-in-Differences estimators at different geographical scales, we show that regions that did not obtain the less developed status in both the programming period 2007–2013 and 2014–2020, but that would have obtained it in the period 2014–2020 without the 2004 EU enlargement, experienced a significantly lower GDP per capita growth between −10.5% and −5.7%. Conversely, territories that in the period 2014–2020 lost the less developed status, previously obtained in the time frame 2007–2013, were not characterized by a significantly lower economic growth, providing some evidence of the effectiveness of the safety net.     

Introduction: Canada–US Relations under Obama: Continuity or Change? ACSUS Enders Symposium,Carleton University, 24 October 2008

The Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) organizes the biennial ACSUS Enders Symposium as a way of promoting understanding of the evolution of Canada–US relations. The symposium also honors the work of Thomas O. Enders, who served as US ambassador to Canada from 1976 to 1979, and his work in promoting the relationship between the two countries. In other years, the symposium was held in Washington DC at the Woodrow Wilson Center, but the ACSUS board decided to move the event to Canada in 2008 in order to expand its audience and bring in new actors. Carleton University (with its Centre on North American Politics and Society and its School of Canadian Studies) and the Canada–Fulbright Foundation were brought in as partners, and the sixth biennial symposium was held 24 October 2008 at Carleton University in Ottawa. Several papers of the symposium appear here in a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies.     

Science, gender, and the emergence of depression in American psychiatry, 1952-1980

Between the first (1952) and the third (1980) editions of psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, depression emerged as a specific disease category with concrete criteria. In this article, I analyze this change over time in psychiatric theory and diagnosis through an examination of medication trials and category formation. Throughout, I pay particular attention to the ways in which psychiatrists and researchers invoked science in their clinical trials and disease theories, as well as the ways in which gender played an important but largely unspoken role in the formation of a category of depression.     

Habitat preference of extant African bovids based on astragalus morphology: operationalizing ecomorphology for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction

The habitat preferences of fauna found at palaeontological and archaeological sites can be used to investigate ancient environments and hominin habitat preferences. Here we present a discriminant function model linking astragalus morphology to four broadly defined habitat categories (open, light cover, heavy cover, and closed) using modern bovids of known ecology. Twenty-four measurements were taken on a sample of 286 astragali from 36 extant African antelope species. These measurements were used to generate ratios reflecting shape. An 11 variable discriminant function model was developed that had high classification success rates for complete astragali. Resubstitution analysis, jackknife analysis, and the classification of several “test samples” of specimens suggest that the predictive accuracy of this model is around 87%. The total classification success rates of 87% (jackknifed) or 93% (resubstitution) are considerably higher than those derived in another study of bovid astragalus ecomorphology (67%; [DeGusta, D., Vrba, E.S., 2003. A method for inferring palaeohabitats from the functional morphology of bovid astragali. J. Archaeol. Sci. 30, 1009–1022]) that used a more limited measurement scheme and a smaller sample of bovids than the present study. Different approaches to operationalizing ecomorphic analyses are considered in order to best extract accurate palaeoenvironmental information from palaeontological and archaeological datasets.     

Mr. Dithers Comes to Dinner: Telework and the merging of women's work and home domains in Canada

Studies of home-based telework by women yield mixed results regarding the usefulness of telework in facilitating work–life balance. Most research on the social impacts of home-based telework focuses on workers—employees or self-employed—who deliberately choose that alternative work arrangement. Labour force analysts, however, predict an increase in employer-initiated teleworking. As a case study of the workforce of one large, financial-sector firm in Canada, this article considers the conditions of employment of involuntary teleworkers, those required by their employer to work full-time from a home office. In-depth interviews were co nducted with a sample of 18 female teleworkers working for the case study firm in a professional occupation. Study participants described the advantages and disadvantages of working from home, particularly with regard to spatial and social aspects of locating work in a home setting. The gendered nature of their jobs, and the caring and supportive functions they provide both through their employment and their household responsibilities are seen to support the relocation of their jobs from office to their homes. In many jurisdictions, telework is promoted as a means of giving women more flexibility to balance their paid work with their household responsibilities; the article highlights some of the contradictions involved in moving the workplace into women's homes.