This paper aims to investigate the relationship between remittance flows and the gender and skill characteristics of the migrants. By using annual data on bilateral migration and bilateral remittances between 20 OECD sending countries and 22 receiving countries from Europe and Central Asia over the period 2010-2012, a gravity model, incorporating the share of female- and the share of skilled migrants, is estimated. The model is extended by including a number of macroeconomic determinants of remittances. The main results show that remittances per capita decline with both share of female migrants and the share of the skilled migrants, and this relationship is more evident for receiving countries with relatively higher income levels. Skilled women are also found to remit smaller amounts of money relative to the unskilled ones. Thus, the study contradicts the widespread claim that females are more reliable remitters and that the negative effect of brain drain from developing countries could be mitigated by larger volumes of remittances sent by skilled migrants relative to unskilled ones. Furthermore, most of the macro variables are found to be significant and remittances show to be more responsive to the economic conditions in the source rather than in the recipient countries. The evidence on the motives to remit is rather mixed.

Arithmetic cognition research was at one time concerned mostly with the representation and retrieval of arithmetic facts in memory. More recently it was found that memory retrieval does not account for all single digit arithmetic performance. For example, Canadian university students solve up to 40% of basic addition problems using procedural strategies (e.g. 5 + 3 = 5 + 1 + 1 + 1). Given that procedures are less efficient than direct memory retrieval it is important to understand why procedure use is high, even for relatively skilled adults. My dissertation, therefore, sought to expand understanding of strategy choice for adults’ basic arithmetic. Background on this topic and supporting knowledge germane to the topic are provided in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 focused on a well-known, but unexplained, finding: A written word problem (six + seven) results in much greater reported use of procedures (e.g., counting) than the same problem in digits (6 + 7). I hypothesized that this could be the result of a metacognitive effect whereby the low surface familiarity for word problems discourages retrieval. This was tested by familiarizing participants with a subset of the written word stimuli (e.g. three + four = ?, six + nine= ?) and then testing them on unpractised problems comprised of practiced components (four + six = ?). The result was increased retrieval reported for unpractised problems with practiced components. This indicates that surface familiarity contributes to strategy choice. Chapter 3 focused on another classic phenomenon in the arithmetic cognition literature, the problem size effect: Response time, error, and procedure rates increase as a function of problem size. A previous study reported a reduced problem size effect for auditory multiplication problems compared to digit problems. I hypothesized that if this reduction was due to problem encoding processes rather than an effect on calculation per se, then a similar pattern would be observed for addition. Instead, I found that the size effect for addition was larger. I concluded that the auditory format promotes procedures for addition, but promotes retrieval for multiplication. Chapters 4 and 5 were concerned with a well-known methodological issue in the strategy literature, subjectivity of self-reports: Some claim self-reports are more like opinions than objective measures. Thevenot, Fanget, and Fayol (2007) ostensibly solved this problem by probing problem memory subsequent to participants providing an answer. They reasoned that after a more complex procedure, the memory for the original problem would become degraded. The result would be better memory for problems answered by retrieval instead of by procedure. I hypothesized that their interpretation of their findings was conflated with the effect of switching tasks from arithmetic to number memory. I demonstrated that their new method for measuring strategy choice was contaminated by task switching costs, which compromises its application as a measure of strategy choice (Chapter 4). In a subsequent project (Chapter 5), I tested the sensitivity of this new method to detect the effects of factors known in the literature to affect strategy choice. The results indicated that Thevenot et al.’s new method was insensitive to at least one of these factors. Thus, attempts to control for the confounding effects of task switching described in Chapter 4, in order to implement this new measure, are not warranted. The current dissertation expanded understanding of strategy choice in four directions by 1) demonstrating that metacognitive factors cause increases in procedure strategies, 2) by demonstrating that the process of strategy selection is affected differentially by digit and auditory-verbal input, 3) by investigating the validity of an alternative measure of strategy use in experimental paradigms, and 4) by discovering a critical failure in the sensitivity of this new measure to measure the effects of factors known to influence strategy use. General conclusions are discussed in Chapter 6.

Using theoretical and empirical approaches, this thesis asks whether skilled and unskilled labour complement or substitute one another in production. We primarily investigate whether an increase in the proportion of workers with skills would raise or lower demand for those who remain unskilled. A secondary issue is the role of factor prices in labour demand. To study the role of factor prices, we estimate labour demand elasticities and Alien elasticities of substitution between capital and up to five occupations in South Africa. We supplement firmlevel data with household survey information and confirm theoretically that the elasticities can be estimated from a cost function under non-constant returns to scale. We show that separable disaggregated inputs can be used to find aggregate elasticities: more skilled and less skilled aggregates are p-complements, so a fall in skilled wages would lead to a rise in demand for less skilled labour. Disaggregated estimates suggest unskilled workers are p-complements with semi-skilled workers but p-substitutes with skilled/artisanal labour. We investigate the effects of a rise in skill supply on the relatively unskilled by estimating Hicks elasticities of complementarity and factor price. Aggregated estimates suggest more skilled and less skilled labour are q-complements, so an exogenous rise in the supply of skilled labour would raise demand for less skilled labour. Disaggregated estimates suggest skilled/artisanal and unskilled labour are q-complements while semi-skilled and unskilled labour are q-substitutes. The results allow for imperfectly elastic product demand and rigid wages. Using an endogenous growth model, we show technological progress is skill-biased in the South if it is in the North, resulting in rising wage inequality in developing countries. Assuming skilled and unskilled labour are perfect substitutes, we model expanded educational access as it adds relatively educated cohorts to the labour market. A rising skill composition causes accelerated skill-biased technological change and wage inequality. Relaxing the assumption of perfect substitutability, a one-off rise in skill supply only raises wage inequality if the elasticity of substitution is high, higher than existing empirical estimates.

Chapter 1 Low-skilled Migration and Altruism: Population ageing has become a common concern among welfare states, including Canada and most of the OECD countries. Immigration has been identified as a solution to help sustain labour-force growth in industrialized countries, and as the factor most able to mitigate dire predictions of future fiscal imbalances. This chapter examines the impact of low-skilled immigration in a host country where households are altruists with a pay-as-you-go pension system to support the elderly. It demonstrates that low-skilled immigration does not harm the welfare of the domestic population. We use an overlapping-generations model similar to the work of Razin and Sadka (2000) but introduce paternalistic altruism into the life-cycle framework. Within this context of inter-generational altruism and pay-as-you-go pension systems, the initial negative fiscal impact of low-skilled migrants is compensated, thus, all income groups (high and low) and all age groups (young and old) benefit from migration. // Chapter 2 Growth and Sustainability: In light of the major environmental issues experienced by several countries in the last decades, several papers have advocated the rethinking of the role of governments in environmental preservation. This chapter develops an overlapping-generations model of environmental quality and production and investigates the potential role of governmental participation in the preservation of the quality of the environment so as to achieve both economic growth and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that long term economic growth and environment sustainability can be maintained with tax-funded environmental programs in a context of a negative production externality on the quality of the environment. // Chapter 3 The Incidence of Geography on Canada’s Services Trade: We estimate geographic barriers to export trade in nine service categories for Canada's provinces from 1997 to 2007 using the structural gravity model. Constructed Home, Domestic and Foreign Bias indexes capture the direct plus indirect effect of services trade costs on intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international trade relative to their frictionless benchmarks. Barriers to services international trade are huge relative to inter-provincial trade and large relative to goods international trade. A novel test confirms the fit of structural gravity with services trade data.

The rat model of cervical dorsal root injury mimics the avulsion of dorsal roots in humans following brachial plexus injury, a condition that leads to debilitating sensory disturbances and intractable neuropathic pain that is not amenable to repair. This injury disrupts sensory inputs from the dorsal roots to the spinal cord and the damaged axons do not regenerate across the PNS-CNS interface, the dorsal root entry zone. This thesis investigated the role of OECs for repairing DRI-associated neuropathic pain, which has never been previously explored. Chapter 2 of this thesis characterised two DRI models, a partial (2-root) or complete (4-root) deafferentation of the rat forepaw. The 2-root animals developed persistent allodynia and hyperalgesia, whereas in the 4-root DRI, in contrast, reduced sensation (desensitisation) was found within the affected forepaw. The degree of deficits on performing complex, skilled forepaw movements was proportional to the severity of DRI. Sensory control of forepaw movements was permanently abolishes in animals with 4-root DRI. With the goal of repairing DRI-associated neuropathic pain, the efficacy of genetically modified OECs that carry a novel GDNF construct was examined. These modified GDNF-OECs were able to produce GDNF in vitro, however, died rapidly and failed to yield long term GDNF expression after both acute and delayed transplantation into the DRI spinal cord. Unmodified plain OECs were then used. The results show that delayed transplantation of OECs attenuated the development of DRI-associated allodynia and hyperalgesia. Central reorganisations occurred within the dorsal horn following DRI, including reduction in the area of deep dorsal horn, permanent depletion of IB4-labeled axons and restoration of CGRP-labelled afferents in the denervated superficial laminae. The development of neuropathic pain is suggested to be mediated by the aberrant expansion of large myelinated VGLUT1-positive afferents into the superficial laminae, which normally receive nociceptive inputs. The effect of OECs on modulating nociception seems to be mediated by factors other than inhibition of afferent sprouting. In conclusion, the results in this thesis demonstrated the potential effect of OECs for modulating DRI-associated neuropathic pain. This finding could have clinical applicability for resistant pain sequelae resulting from neurotrauma.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1991. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [87]-112).

Thesis (doctoral)--Tampereen yliopisto. / Added t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 604-626).

The topics of motivation and job satisfaction have been of interest to researchers over the past decades. Many researchers and practitioners have studied the driving factors to motivate staff in the workplace, but no specific findings have shown correlation between motivation and job satisfaction. Problems of motivation and job satisfaction have continued to plague many developing countries like Malaysia. This study is an attempt to improve the understanding of the human contribution to variability in manufacturing industries and the focus areas are work motivation, satisfaction and performance as well as relationships with learning behaviours of employees in the workplace. The research work can be categorized into three parts. The first part consists of pilot study which was conducted to determine the practicality and validity of method/instruments used in the research. The pilot study also helped to correct the flaws/weaknesses of the method before employing it in the full-scale research study. Secondly, an experimental study was carried out to identify the motivation, satisfaction, performance and learning behaviour of unskilled and skilled employees doing simple or complex tasks individually or in group. The final part was an industrial study conducted with 356 employees from various positions and backgrounds in selected manufacturing industries in Malaysia. Based on the findings, it has been shown that unskilled employees preferred doing complex tasks in a group rather than doing simple tasks and skilled employees preferred doing complex tasks individually rather than in a group. It increased their work motivation, satisfaction and performance. It was found that task identity (simple tasks) and learning behaviours (individual learning of unskilled employees) can be the reason for employees to leave in the future. The task identity (task complexity) can be an important factor in job design in organisations and it is significant in the learning process of unskilled and skilled employees in manufacturing industries, particularly in Malaysia. It was also found that learning in a team (group) appears to be a very significant factor in workplace learning for both unskilled and skilled employees. The study has shown that there are relationships between motivational and learning behaviours of skilled and unskilled employees and this knowledge is expected to be useful for employers and policy makers in organisations especially in manufacturing industries in Malaysia.

Magister Public Health - MPH / Although the Kenyan government implemented safe motherhood programme two decades ago, available data indicate that prevalence of home delivery is still high among women in Garissa District. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the factors influencing the choice of place of childbirth. Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among 224 women who delivered babies two years prior to December 2010. Using a statcalc program in Epi Info 3.3.2, with expected frequency of home delivery at 83% +5% and a 95% confidence level, the calculated sample size was 215. Furthermore, with a 95% response rate the adjusted minimum sample size was 226.There were two none-responses hence 224 women were interviewed. Stratified sampling was used. Data were collected using pre-tested structured questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analysis was performed. A binary logistic regression analysis using the Enter method was performed to determine independent predictors for use or non-use of healthcare services for childbirth. The threshold for statistical significance was set at 0.05. Results: The result was presented in text and tables. The study found 67% (n=224) women delivered at home and 33% delivered in hospital. The study found low level of education, poverty, none-attendance of ANC, distance, cost of services, poor quality services, negative attitude towards midwives, experience of previous obstetric complications and decision-making to be significant predictors in home delivery at the bivariate level (p<0.05). The study did not find relationship between age, marital status, religion and place of childbirth (p>0.05). At multivariate level, the following variables were still found to be significant predictors of home delivery: no education OR=8.36 (95% CI; 4.12-17.17), no occupation OR=1.43(95% CI; 1.08–5.49) experience of obstetric complications OR=1.38 (95% CI; 1.15-2.12), none-attendance of antenatal clinic OR=1.11 (95% CI; 1.03–1.51), Rude midwives OR=5.60 (95% CI; 2.66-11.96). Conclusions: high prevalence of home delivery was noted due to lack of education, poverty and inaccessible maternity services hence the need to empower women in education and economy to enhance hospital delivery.

This research is about craft education in schools in England and Japan. In the specialist literature, skilled knowledge has always been identified as the main outcome of craft learning in schools, but contemporary rationales for craft education include fostering children’s design thinking understood as a process of developing creative ideas. At the time this research began in 2005, Japanese government policy for craft education emphasized creative problem solving and designing together with making skills. However, developing design ideas and skilled knowledge may be conflicting aims. There was very little guidance for Japanese craft teachers about how to teach creative thinking and more theoretical discussion about design in England. So I studied how design thinking is taught in England with a view to this contributing to craft education in Japan. The research method was qualitative and comparative. In the first phase, analysis of policy documents for Art & Design and Design & Technology and fieldwork in three primary and five secondary schools was conducted in England. In the second phase, policy documents for Art & Handicraft, Art, Home Economics and Technology & Home Economics were analysed and fieldwork was conducted in the first two subjects in seven primary and six secondary schools in Japan. Then the findings were compared and analysed qualitatively. This research confirmed that skilled knowledge is central to craft education in schools in both countries. There was a significant influence of school subject domains on how crafts were taught in class. The lack of any specification for thinking skills in the learning domains for craft education in Japan may explain why there is less emphasis on teaching design thinking than in England. I concluded that it is possible to teach design thinking and skilled knowledge successfully together in craft projects. However, it is difficult to apply this in practice in school contexts because they often lack relevant staff expertise, time and authentic materials and tools. At the end of the thesis possible ways of teaching design thinking and skilled knowledge together are suggested in the form of a domain model of art curriculum and an interactive design process model. Some strategies for teaching design thinking identified in England could provide a basis for future curriculum development in Japan.